BlackPerspective.net
Discussing the Diaspora as seen through an internal Black lens
Juneteenth - Today Is Independence Day
June 19th, 2008
Be sure to check your local Black paper, Black radio station online community listings, or posters on the wall at the African incense store to see what Juneteenth events are happening in your community this weekend.
Be an active part of a celebration to keep our culture and history alive. That means going to a freakneek type gathering disguised as a Juneteenth celebration, doesn’t count.
Juneteenth Round Up
- First Purple Zoe has the history:
“Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.
Today Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement. It is a day, a week, and in some areas a month marked with celebrations, guest speakers, picnics and family gatherings. It is a time for reflection and rejoicing. It is a time for assessment, self-improvement and for planning the future. Its growing popularity signifies a level of maturity and dignity in America long over due.
-
Carmen D. writes:
On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War had ended and those who had been slaves were now free. There are a number of accounts as to why freedom took so long to arrive in Texas:
“Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. All or none of them could be true.” History of Juneteenth– Juneteenth.com
Whatever the reason, the result was that free people were still enslaved past the moment when slavery was abolished. In honor of the jubilation the ancestors must have felt on this day, I have released my imagination from the bonds of reality for a moment and I will share a fantasy with you. My fantasy is that I have arms long enough and strong enough to wrap around all the poor, disenfranchised and hopeless young people in our country. I draw them close and whisper in each anxious ear “You are free.” I tell them “There is no limit to your power, if you claim it.”…
-
Elder Eddie Griffin muses:
I learned of Juneteenth in my childhood during the 1940s, when the holiday celebration was still at its height. I remember Juneteenth as a day of gentle defiance, when all black people took the day off from work. No permission was asked and no advance notice was given. It was just something everybody knew and accepted.
Domestic maids and servants like my mother simply stopped work and took time to celebrate the day similar to the way whites celebrated the Fourth of July. But there were one thing black maids and cooks did for their employers. They would fix their white employers and their families a special Juneteenth barbecue dinner and leave it in the oven for the next day. Otherwise, the whites were left to fend for themselves on that one day.
He’s from Texas by the way, for context.
Please pass on knowledge and understanding of Juneteenth to someone you know.
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Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.
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I think about Juneteenth every time that fireworks begin to show up on 4th of July. As you note in your post’s title … today is truly a celebration of independence for African Americans.
My Juneteenth blog post is up & running now…
peace, Villager
I’ll check it out Villager.
Fantastic. Thanks also for the mention.
In Solidarity
-PZ
Foremost, I thank you for your efforts to better our people and planet . . .
I believe every day, 365 days a year, is Black History Month, and we make history every day . . .
Please allow me to share with you my calling:
UniTee Design is better educating today’s youth by connecting our people and maximizing our resources. Caring citizens, parents, students, schools, groups, businesses, churches, and many others are working with us to create more academic successes for more children.
“UniTees” (custom designed tee shirts proudly featuring the red, black and green colors of African American culture) teach our younger generation a rich history and heritage to uplift self-esteem and self-identity. And sales of UniTees help fund a variety of youth education programs and initiatives
As founder of a non-profit coalition, The Better Detroit Youth Movement, I’m intent on establishing higher levels of communication, cooperation and collaboration among youth and community service providers to mobilize action and maximize better outcomes for Detroit children and teens. It’s my goal to use what we build and learn here in Detroit, through the BDYM, to start similarly successful organizations in New York, Atlanta and Oakland, and beyond.
The urgency to revive the power of our people in unity to uplift our youth is obvious. Thus, we welcome collaborations for a common cause and greater good.
Please check out www.uniteedesign.com to learn about a growing movement that’s empowering brighter futures every day. Let’s continue to encourage others to do their part in improving the quality of life and learning for our children.
All our children really need is all of us.
R. Lee Gordon
President / Executive Director
UniTee Design, Inc. / The Better Detroit Youth Movement
www.uniteedesign.com / www.betterdetroityouth.org
rgordon@uniteedesign.com / rgordon@betterdetroityouth.org
Toll Free: 888.OUR.RBG.TEES / Phone: 313.516.8384 / Fax: 313.342.6324
“There is strength in unity. There is power in our people. There is knowledge in power. Let us unite as a people with the knowledge to power and empower a better future of our children.”
Juneteenth is America’s 2nd Independence Day celebration. Americans of African descent were trapped in the tyranny of enslavement on the country’s first “4th of July”, 1776, Independence Day. We honor our ancestors, Americans of African descent, who heard the news of freedom and celebrated with great joy and jubilation, on the “19th of June”, Juneteenth, 1865.
It took over 88 years for the news of freedom to be announced in Southwest Texas, over two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln.
The National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign has worked diligently for several years to establish legislation in 29 states to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or state holiday observance, the District of Columbia, as well as the Congress of the United States. This has been a great accomplishment for the “Modern Juneteenth Movement” in America, reaching far beyond the establishment of Juneteenth as a state holiday in the place were it all began, in Texas, first celebrated in 1980.
Together we will see Juneteenth become a National Holiday in America!
“DOC”
Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D.
Chairman
National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign
National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF)
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC)
www.Juneteenth.us
www.19thofJune.com
www.njclc.com
www.JuneteenthJazz.com