JUNETEENTH The second u.s. independence day by Suzanne Hanney
“What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass asked in an 1852 speech to the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, N.Y.
day. Federal workers observed the holiday on Friday, the day after the ceremony, since Juneteenth was on a Saturday last year.
“I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all the other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim….your shouts of liberty and equality, [are] hollow mockery; mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.” Douglass (1818-1895) was a former slave-turned-abolitionist newspaper editor and an orator, the most influential African American of his era.
Juneteenth is a holiday to embrace, President Biden said, because “Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments. We come to terms with the mistakes we made. And in remembering those moments, we begin to heal and grow stronger.
Juneteenth, on the other hand, marks the actual independence date for the last slaves in the South. A contraction of “June” and “19th,” Juneteenth “marks our country’s second independence day,” according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The holiday also epitomizes the path African Americans have trudged in the face of whites who begrudged them freedom. On June 19, 1865, Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and read aloud General Order No. 3, which began, “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
COVER STORY
Slaves had been free on paper for more than 2½ years, thanks to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863. But because the Civil War was fought on Confederate soil, the Proclamation couldn’t be enforced until Union troops had conquered all of the South. Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021, although it had long been celebrated in Texas and as a state holiday across the U.S. The Black Lives Matter movement, after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, catalyzed efforts of both politicians and individuals to create this federal holiday, the first enacted since Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday in 1983. President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act on Thursday, June 17, 2021, following its approval by a 415-54 vote in the House on Wednesday, the previous day, and a unanimous vote in the Senate on Tues-
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“The truth is, it’s not – simply not enough just to commemorate Juneteenth. After all, the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans didn’t mark the end of America’s work to deliver on the promise of equality; it only marked the beginning.” Policies the United States enacts, President Biden said, should put the promise of equality into action. This means combatting racial discrimination in home ownership, bringing more funds to Black entrepreneurs and more research dollars to historically Black universities. The nation must stand for equity in schools, health care, water systems – and it must protect voting rights. Among those at the signing ceremony were U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Chicago), who had offered a resolution to the 109th Congress in 2005 recognizing the significance of Juneteenth Independence Day. His resolution had expressed the same thoughts as Biden: that history “should be regarded as a means for understanding the past and solving the challenges of the future.” Others at the ceremony were the musician Usher and Opal Lee, “the Grandmother of Juneteenth.” A 94-year-old former teacher, Lee had made symbolic 2½-mile walks every Juneteenth around the U.S. for 40 years to publicize the 2½-year gap between Lincoln’s proclamation and the slaves’ actual freedom. Between September 2016 and January 2017 at the end of President Barack Obama’s second term, Lee began Opal’s Walk 2 D.C. in order to petition his administration and Congress to grant Juneteenth an official position on the calendar. She traveled the U.S., marching the symbolic 2½ miles in cities that invited her to take part in Juneteenth festivities. “I went to Madison, Wis; Milwaukee, Atlanta, the Carolinas. I was all over the place,” she told Variety.
