Juneteenth

Happy Juneteenth to all amazing people out there. (And all the less amazing people...we don't discriminate here)

Today is a good day. You know why?

This is the first Juneteenth in my lifetime that I have truly celebrated with my family. I was thinking recently and I realize that Juneteenth is one of the few truly "black" American holidays. I mean think about it. 

Veterans Day is an American holiday that encompasses every veteran, not just one group.

Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, heck even Saint Patrick's Day are universal, well in my limited American perspective it's universal. 

Columbus Day.....cough cough....trash...cough cough...isn't a thing. Oh, I got a question. If you were in school walking by a lost and found bin and saw a twenty-dollar bill inside and picked it up would we rename the school after you?

No. No, we wouldn't. And Columbus was worse because America wasn't lost it was firmly in the hands of the people that owned it. He more like snatched the metaphorical twenty dollar bill out of their hands. And we still haven't returned it. 

In fact, all we've done in the last twenty years is make Pocohantos which wasn't even historically accurate.

[ I would like to note that my great great great grandparents were Cherokee Natives which make me only a 32nd Cherokee which makes me one generation off directly claiming it. But I still do identify with that history of mine as much as I can. But for this conversation, I speak unfortunately as an outsider, so I hold myself just as accountable for America's treatment of Native Americans as anyone else. ]

Indigenous People's Day is, while not nationally recognized, just as important as Juneteenth if not more because Native Americans are sorely under-acknowledged and face the same struggles all people of color face in this country. But again, a conversation for later. 

July fourth is a celebration of the creation of the Declaration of Independence, by that one guy I really don't like... Thomas Jefferson. I have beef with Thomas Jefferson, but I will hash that out in a special post dedicated to shading good ol' TJ, as my AP US history teacher calls him. 

Anyway, the fourth of July is a celebration of, yes American independence, but last I checked slavery was still going strong for little under another hundred years. So I don't really celebrate Independence Day anymore. 

As the Broadway phenomena Hamilton said in the song My Shot: 

"But we'll never be truly free

Until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me
You and I. Do or die. Wait till I sally in
On a stallion with the first black battalion
Have another shot"

See...I don't know why exactly that verse has always stuck out to me so much when the whole soundtrack to Hamilton is solidly antislavery, which I'd hope for considering it was made in the 21st century. 

But hey, we also had straight neonazi's 😳 rolling through in 2016 after Trump was elected so clearly my perception of equality in modern-day isn't as commonly modern as one would hope. 😬

(Bruh Grammarly just called me out for having a "gloomy" tone of writing...my bad)

 

Regardless today is a day of celebration of the true ending of slavery in America. Yes, the Emancipation Proclamation technically freed all slaves ( in the South) on January 1st of 1863 and took effect in the North with the ending of the Civil War. 

BUT it's not like America had email in 1863, and most slaves couldn't read, so it took a while for the news to spread. Moreover, it's not like any slaveowners were in a hurry to abide by the new law, America was literally built on the backs of slaves, and most didn't know a life without slavery. Black and White people. So it's no surprise that there was resistance, in fact, Lincoln had the south divided into military sectors and the South had to earn it's way back into the union. Not that this changed their views, ie Jim Crow laws, or the CURRENT prison system, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement.

All of this lead to two and a half more years of bondage for African Americans, most of which had no idea they were legally free. Until June 19, 1865, when the last of the enslaved black people in America were finally emancipated. 

We call this  Freedom Day, or more commonly know as Juneteenth. Now celebrating Juneteenth isn't something we've always done, in fact it's pretty new nationally. But it's celebration originated in Texas and varies from state to state. I hope that one day when I reread this post it'll be nationally recognized. 

That would be the greatest gift.

Enjoy your Juneteenth ❤❤

Bye y'all

P.S. Here's the YT link for Hamilton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzS6g8FybKE