Juneteenth: A day worthy

Photo by Charles "Duck" Unitas on Unsplash

A personal opinion piece.

On June 19, 1865, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Tex. and finally informed enslaved black Americans that they were free. It was a moment of delayed justice — and, for too many former slaves and their descendants, just the beginning of what would be several more decades of delay that would follow. It was a moment of hard-earned freedom, and a moment of national reckoning.

In my younger years, I won a number of press awards for editorial writing. I liked to think I could editorialize as good as anyone who ever picked up a pen (which is probably just a fancy way of saying I liked to argue). The older I get, the less I care about trying to convince anyone of a point of view. As a writer, my love for informing hasn’t diminished. But I’ve realized that my opinions don’t matter, and even if they did, I don’t have the energy to try to convince others that they do.

But as a center-right white American living in a predominately white community where the importance of a day to commemorate slavery’s end doesn’t fully resonate, I’m willing to make an exception on Juneteenth.

Despite living in a community where the population is 95% white, I don’t know anyone who thinks that slavery should still be practiced, or even anyone who believes it was justified 200 years ago. Skepticism surrounding the Juneteenth holiday seems to center on the belief that it’s intended to make white Americans feel guilty or remorseful about slavery — perhaps even a form of shaming the white race because slavery existed.

The latter part of that idea can only be true if we — as white Americans — treat Juneteenth as a holiday that black Americans observe while we stand to the side. But the end of slavery is something that every American can celebrate.

Juneteenth isn’t about guilt. It’s about honesty — the honesty to admit that America’s founding promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness weren’t extended to everyone. Enslaved people were excluded from those ideas. Thomas Jefferson, who authored that powerful statement about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, didn’t believe that all men are created equal. Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation and ended slavery in the rebellious Southern states, didn’t believe it, either. Few white people did in 1860, even among those who were willing to fight a bloody war over the idea that slavery should be abolished.

Even after slavery had been ended legally, it continued in practice through sharecropping, convict leasing, Jim Crow laws and redlining. Freedom’s long road, which should have never included a separate lane for any group of people based on the color of their skin, remained unfinished for far too long — for more than 100 years after federal troops marched into Galveston on June 19, 1865.

Celebrating Juneteenth doesn’t erase or even diminish the Fourth of July. It expands the Fourth of July. Juneteenth is an opportunity to recognize and acknowledge that liberty didn’t come to all Americans at once. That’s something worth remembering.

History isn’t something that you inherit. It also isn’t something you ignore. It’s something that shapes all of us, as a people and as a nation. My fifth-great-grandfather Garrett was a slaveowner in Pickett County, Tenn. I don’t need to be ashamed of that because I didn’t choose it and I didn’t cause it. But I do need to be honest about it — about what it means, what it says about the time he lived in, and what it means for the country I live in now.

As the novelist and historian Shelby Foote, a proud Southerner, said late in his life: “Slavery is a huge stain on us. We all carry it. I carry it, deep in my bones, the consequences of slavery.” We’ve made great progress as a nation, but problems persist that stem from the original sin of slavery. When we’re honest about that, we can understand how far we’ve come.

So, no, Juneteenth isn’t about making white people feel bad. Understanding Juneteenth doesn’t require self-loathing. It requires empathy. It is a day that is about telling the whole story of America — the parts that inspire and the parts that indict. It’s a call to live up to the ideals that we hold dear. It’s a celebration of resilience, of survival, and of hope. And it’s a reminder that “freedom for all” is a promise still being fulfilled.

Once these United States are truly united, black Americans can stand alongside white Americans on the Fourth of July, watch fireworks and wave the red, white and blue because they understand that the Declaration of Independence and the events of 1776 truly accomplished freedom and liberty for all Americans, even if the founders were imperfect men with flawed ambition. And, at the same time, white Americans can stand with black Americans on Juneteenth and truly celebrate the end of slavery because they understand that the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, and the events culminating in 1865 finally put us on the road to fully realizing the ideas espoused in the Declaration of Independence.

The spirit of this day is progress delayed … but not progress denied. That is truly worthy of a day to stop the mail, close the banks, and celebrate.