Today, Explained - Celebrate Juneteenth!

Episode Date: June 19, 2020

The celebration of emancipation is as vital today as ever. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Happy Freedom Day! Juneteenth is the day African Americans celebrate the end of slavery, but Brenda Stevenson, professor of history and African American studies at UCLA, says everyone should get behind the Juneteenth celebrations. I asked her to explain the history of Juneteenth to me back in 2018, but it feels more important now than ever that everyone understand this holiday in June 2020. So today you're going to get an encore presentation. It all goes back to Texas. Juneteenth starts really in 1865 when General Gordon Granger

arrived in Galveston, Texas with 2,000 troops to basically take over this area that was held by the Confederacy. And as part of that, he is going to let those persons who are still enslaved in Texas during this time period know that slavery has ended. Obviously, this all comes down to June 19, 1865. What happens that day in Galveston, Texas? What is read out? And who celebrates? General Granger is the person who reads this proclamation that says...

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the executive of the United States. All slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and the rights of property between former masters and slaves. And the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. And that is the end of it. And people are both amazed and thrilled and excited. And there is dancing in the street, there is singing, there is praise to God, there are, you know, spirituals that are being sung and people just impromptu partying, running away, you know, leaving their plantations. Well, can you remember what happened when they set you free?

Do you remember how the old master acted? No, sir. I can't remember that, you know. I can't remember that. But I remember, you know, the time they gave them a big dinner, you know, on the 19th. Is that right? On the 19th. Had a long table and just had a little of everything you want to eat, you know, and drink, you know.

And they said that was on the 19th. Lots of people hit the road to try to find their family members that they have been separated from. And so it is a miraculous and celebratory and exciting and frightening and jubilant moment for those hundreds of thousands of persons who are enslaved in Texas at the time. There was a lot of prayer services that took place, lots of marriages that took place at Juneteenth, because, of course, African Americans were not allowed to legally marry during this time period. So oftentimes after these celebrations, you'd have group marriages that took place. So there's this celebration, this sort of joyous moment, how is it followed?

What does life become like for a freed slave in a place like Galveston, Texas, or anywhere else in the South? It doesn't stay a jubilant moment. This is the end of a war. This is a war that has devastated the region. Approximately 800,000 people have died. And so reconstruction begins. There is an attempt to kind of redo the American South

to make it more like, at least legally, like the Northeast. But these are laws. These are not customs. These are not behaviors. And we're still grappling, you know. So many years later, we're trying to have the nation actually become a place of equality for all people. We know that Jim Crow, you know, comes in and becomes part of the experiences of African-descended people who were slaves fairly soon after the end of the Civil War. I mean, once the U.S. military leaves any region, it basically goes back to the way that it was.

There's disfranchisement. African-American males lose the right to vote. There is domestic terrorism in the form of lynching, in the form of burning down property, in the form of not allowing people to have property, in the form of rape, in the form of burning down property, in the form of not allowing people to have property, in the form of rape, in the form of seizure of children, etc., etc. So it does turn fairly soon to something of a horror show for those persons. And does the jubilant spirit of Juneteenth die amidst this horror show? The jubilant spirit of Juneteenth does not die because it remains in the African American imagination and history and reality as a moment when at least legally slavery ended. People did have more control over their labor.

People did have more control over their families and particularly their children. So people were able to gain some property. People were able to gain education. And so people continued to celebrate that, but also continued to celebrate Juneteenth as a moment of inspiration for moving forward. People saw the nation evolving towards its ideals of equality. So despite this being a major development, emancipation isn't a storybook ending. It's lynching, as you said. It's Jim Crow segregation. How is Juneteenth celebrated after emancipation? People continued to have church services around it, fundraisers around it to help, you know, needy people within the community, etc. Many persons who, white persons who lived in the South would not allow these celebrations to occur on public spaces.

So there were efforts by people in Galveston and other parts of Texas and throughout the South to raise money to purchase land so that they could have these celebrations. They happened in the segregated schools that were imposed upon African-Americans. They happened as part of church life, as part of family life. They were also continued through the club movements, the Masons, the Black Masons that occurred, the ladies organizations, etc., etc. Some of those celebrations went underground in the privacy of a church, in the privacy of your home. With, of course, the domestic terrorism of the Knight Riders or the KKK. It was hard for some people to continue these celebrations. And so we see, particularly at the height of the lynching era, which is the 1890s, the first two decades of the 20th century, many of these celebrations disappear.

And I imagine the next big shift for Juneteenth comes around the civil rights era. What happens then? It really is during the civil rights era that you see more and more people, as we have a renewal of these reform efforts to bring equality to the country, racial equality. Juneteenth re-emerges as one of the celebrations, I think, that comes out of the cultural nationalism. People began to, along with the creation of Kwanzaa, people along with eventually the Martin Luther King's birthday being celebrated, with people celebrating more and more during Black History Month, then even during Black History Week, Juneteenth becomes one of those markers of liberation that becomes a parallel holiday calendar for African Americans and also for people who are interested in equality within the country. So it's a growing global movement, just not a national movement, because I think people realize as we fight, continue to fight modern day necessary, that's needed, that is appreciated, but something that oftentimes needs a lot more work associated with it once it happens. So there are lots of lessons to learn from Juneteenth

that globally inspire the movement to end slavery worldwide. Up next on Today Explained, there's a movement to get Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday to give everyone the day off. But first, the movement's going to have to get a whole lot of white people on board. How to do that in a minute. Thank you. management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained ramp.com slash explained r a m p.com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank.

Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Juneteenth is so important to me just because it's like, it's the day that I became like a person rather than a slave or like a number. Celebrating it, it's like celebrating your culture and your legacy and the things that your ancestors did to get you where you are today and know that you're going to do those things to get your, you know, your future kids and their kids and their kids to a better place than we are now.

Just because slavery has technically ended doesn't mean that everything's happy and dandy and equal. And so Juneteenth is still so significant because of the, I don't want to call them civil rights battles, but just because of the battles that we still face in the African American community. I don't believe that oppression is something that we should live under or be subjected to and so you know on a personal level it's my it's my human right to to be able to to live equally and thrive as equally amongst our brothers and sisters for me

Juneteenth celebrates my freedom in America. Fourth of July, Independence Day, does not celebrate my freedom in America, but Juneteenth does. I am a native Texan, a native Houstonian, as I've also already said. I was born in Third Ward, raised in Third Ward, in Emancipation Park. So this date commemorates my freedom as an American. Okay, so that was some audio from a Juneteenth celebration at Emancipation Park in Houston this weekend. So Texas is kind of the epicenter and birthplace of Juneteenth, but where else is it really celebrated? I think it's being celebrated by African Americans

and the people of Africa to sit in all 50 states. And I think, you know, it's oftentimes done in classrooms, in schools. It is done in the parks. It's done in churches. It's commemorated in state legislatures. People sometimes give gifts. There's lots of barbecues that occur. There's some parades.

There's some festivals. Art is shown. There's dance, music. And where does Juneteenth rank in this sort of black calendar you talk about that features MLK Day and Kwanzaa and Black History Month? Is Juneteenth the most important date or is it among many other important dates? I think is it among many other important dates? I think it's among many other important dates. I mean, MLK is a national holiday. Juneteenth is recognized by 45 out of 50 states now.

Okay. And so it's a growing movement. Is there a chance that a lot of people feel like, oh, Juneteenth, that isn't me. Like, I don't want to appropriate that holiday. That holiday is for black people to celebrate, like, their history and their struggle. And does that hurt the cause of Juneteenth then? Because people feel like they don't want to interfere with a celebration that maybe they don't belong to, to celebrate a history that they didn't suffer through.

Well, I think that actually there's something for everyone in Juneteenth. I think that, you know, people celebrating the ideal of Juneteenth, which is liberation, which is equality, which is human respect and humanity in general, is not an appropriation. You know, it's part of the ideals of the nation. It's part of humanity, of humankind. So if one of our listeners who doesn't happen to be black is walking home tonight and passes by a Juneteenth celebration, he or she should engage, should go out there, give someone a hug, enjoy some barbecue, whatever it might be? Well, I think, first of all, if it's a private event,

it's a private event. I thought this was a big thing that we should all know. We should definitely know it. But the person certainly could, you know, go forth to the person and say, what's going on here? And, oh, Juneteenth, I've heard something about that. It's the end of slavery, and I celebrate that. You know, that's wonderful. Can I have a rib? I think that many people would say, well, you can have some potato chips. I wonder if you were president and could wave a magic wand and decide how Americans, white, black, brown, any color, creed, race, how they marked Juneteenth. What would you put forth? What would you establish? I would want some moments dedicated after you come home from the mall.

Which is inevitable. Or get the sand out of your bathing suit, you know, for people to spend even just a tiny amount of time talking about what it is to be a free person in this world and why freedom is important to each and every person and how we should not think that everyone has the same privileges that many of the people in this country have. And that we need to make certain that we promote that in whichever small or large way we can do so. This is something I would ask the nation to do. I would ask the world to do. Whether they choose to do so or not is part of their rights as a free person. Brenda Stevenson teaches history and African American studies at UCLA. I'm Sean Ramos for them. Happy Juneteenth Jamboree.

There's no shirking, no one's working, everybody stops. Gums are chopping, corks are popping, doing the Texas hop. If you really want a spree, chicks galore, I guarantee. Where's your husband coming to me? The Juneteenth jamboree