Juneteenth: Finding Liberation in the Face of Exclusion and Hatred

On Friday, I will celebrate Juneteenth, a holiday that has been part of my maternal family’s collective consciousness for over 155 years. I am a direct descendant of two formerly enslaved Texans, John and Mary Lee and their infant son J.R.E. Lee. My ancestors received word of their freedom on the June 19, 1865, with their year-old child in their arms, hoping that he would not face the legacy of enslavement. I receive the gift of their love and hope for my future every year that I celebrate Juneteenth rich red drinks, desserts, barbecues, and connecting with Black American history. Yet, the holiday is also a bittersweet realization that liberty has not come to fruition for my family despite the progress we have allegedly made in our society.

However, this year, Juneteenth has become cause célѐbre for America without the actual permission of the descendants of enslaved Texans. Corporations such as Twitter, Adobe, and Nike have endorsed the holiday and given their respective employees a paid day off. President Trump attempted to gaslight my family holiday by staging a campaign rally on this day in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the Tulsa Race Massacre destroyed the prosperous Greenwood District with cooperation between hate groups and law enforcement. Americans of all cultures have attempted to “Columbus” the event while ignoring the history of the original participants. What was once a source of pride, inspiration, and empowerment for Black Texas has become fertile grounds for cultural appropriation.

The holiday began with the initial announcement of freedom. Union General Gordon Granger and his soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to read the General Order 3, which was used to denote the change from enslaved to “hired labor.” This occurred over two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1963. Unfortunately, General Granger’s General Order 3 did not engender equality or rights for the recently liberated.
The racism and exclusion in Texas post emancipation was one of the most brutal state systems of terror. The Lone Star State had one of the largest Ku Klux Klan strongholds in the South, with Black men and women hunted for sport, lynched for asserting themselves, maimed for attempting to change employers or secure payment for their work. Even children were not spared, with the Freedman’s Bureau reporting infants, toddlers, and teenagers as victims of physical violence, sexual assault, and murder. Schools were burned, and teachers were attacked so that freedmen and women could not experience enfranchisement and liberation. True freedom was elusive.

Juneteenth became a holiday of joy despite the brutality of Texas. Freedmen, freedwomen, and families gathered to celebrate the anniversary of their freedom. This was dangerous, as gatherings with several Black people would attract desperados who would kill men, women, and children with impunity. Men and women would express their freedom with the finest clothing they owned, eating foods such as tea cakes and barbecued meats that were usually reserved for masters and mistresses. Hibiscus tea, strawberry lemonade, watermelon, red velvet cake, and later strawberry soda symbolized both the blood of our enslaved ancestors and those lost in the terror of lynching, rape, and murder of the Jim Crow South. When parks refused to allow Black Texans to host Juneteenth celebrations, a group of four men and the AME Church bought 10 acres of land for to form the Emancipation Park in Houston. Admirably, they never let racism interfere with their humanity.
My family takes solace in the Juneteenth success story of our ancestor, J.R.E. Lee. In defiance of an educational system, my great great grandfather tutored himself beyond his secondary education so he could take the placement exams and earn an A.B. from Bishop College. He would later serve as the head of the Math Division of the Tuskegee Institute headed by Booker T. Washington. Lee would found the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools, an organization that would serve as the precursor for the National Education Association for Black educators. However, his most important work was as an administrator for Florida A&M University (FAMU). Lee took the university from a flailing institution after a fire ravaged the campus to an institution with nearly 400 acres of land, expanded extension courses, and recognized by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. His legacy lives on FAMU, which graduates more Black American undergraduates, attorney, and PhDs than any institutions within the United States. Lee’s testimony illustrates how Black Texans took the strength of their struggle to achieve gains for all of Black America.

The courage demonstrated by Black Texans under pressure makes the newfound “interest” in Juneteenth and attempts to commodify and control the narrative of the holiday revolting. From hipsters looking to an alternative holiday to the Fourth of July to members of the African diaspora not understanding why I would want to celebrate enslaved ancestors, the inability to see the history of Black Texans as worthy of reverence under their terms persists. Arguably, even the corporations using the holiday to virtue signal is an extension of this problem. An aspect of racism against the descendants of chattel slavery in America is based on the idea of everyone having the right to celebrate Black American culture without boundaries and to alter it to their own agenda. Attitudes such as these imply that the formerly enslaved don’t deserve their own narrative, even on their jubilee.

If you’re not a descendant of enslaved Texans or Black Americans freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, there are ways to honor the holiday without co-opting it. Enjoy the newfound sales on strawberry soda, barbecue sauce, and red velvet cake. Learn the history of the holiday, learn how my community was dehumanized in Reconstruction and Jim Crow in Texas, learn about how they currently dehumanize Black life in Texas with the murder of James Byrd Jr. and Sandra Bland. Recoil and join the fight regarding the questionable “suicides” that mirror the lynching occurring across the nation. Love and be inspired by the stories of liberation, but leave the celebration to the real victors, the descendants of the event and the larger Emancipation Proclamation. We’ve earned it.