I Love Juneteenth

I love Juneteenth. While it has long been embraced by the Black citizens of Texas, and parts of Oklahoma since its inception in 1865, much of the nation had no knowledge of it. But like many aspects of life in America, the seed of its existence, was well rooted in the nation and in the last 20 years has blossomed in our consciousness.

As we intentionally engage with the racial reckoning this nation must confront, it is time to bring Juneteenth out to the fore, not as a Black holiday, but as an American holiday. While it is easy to take the perspective that the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves from bondage, we really need to take a step back and see it as the emancipation of all of America.

It was far from an end to the racial oppression that was established by the arrival of slaves in Virginia in 1619. But it was a very important turning point in the legal relationship of Black inhabitants of the United States, as we would not have actual legal citizenship until 1868 with the passing of the 14^th Amendment.

While Independence Day is celebrated as the recognition of our becoming a nation separate from England, Juneteenth is a celebration of liberty and equality for all the citizens of this nation, not just the wealthy land owners of the original English colonies the Constitution had been written to protect, marginalizing all other in habitants of this nation.

Indeed, we were all freed from slavery, because slavery bonds both the slave and the slaver. It is imperative that all of America see Juneteenth, not as a Black moment, or a Black holiday or celebration, but a national moment, holiday, and celebration.

Black people have been a wedge issue since we got here. We have been the test of freedom and equality set forth in the Declaration of Independence, even as authors and signers of the Declaration of Independence held humans in bondage, cognizant of their hypocrisy and the damnation slavery might have on the impact of the nation’s future. While they may not have had any idea of the actual cost to the nation, they were fully aware that there was definitely going to be a cost.

The cost, the debt of slavery has yet to be paid by this nation. It is not a debt that is paid solely by money or land, the physical payment has yet to be hammered out, but psychological debts must be paid as well. Part of that debt is the recognition that slavery was an important part of the creation of this nation and its wealth (as was the Apocalypse of the Native Americans).

Accepting this is a giant step in achieving the ideal set forth in the Declaration of Independence, that all people are created equal, and the other ones mentioned in the Pledge of Allegiance, “…with liberty and justice for all.”

Juneteenth is more than just a celebration of freedom for Black people, it is a celebration of this nation stepping out of the darkness of slavery. It is a celebration of our ideals outshining our errors. These were not Black ideals or White ideals, but American ideals, the ones we were taught were the very foundation of this nation, making them American ideals.

While we have not fully achieved these ideals, we are certainly the ‘more perfect union’ than we were in 1776, and it took us until 1863 to once out of that cave, and 1865 when some of the last people came into the light of liberty, as promised in the Declaration. In joy, we all should celebrate Juneteenth as the days we all became free.