Juneteenth: Celebrating self-evident truths



(General Gordon Granger)

On July 4^th, Americans celebrate the “self-evident truths” that Thomas Jefferson so eloquently wrote about:  …that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.  However, Thomas Jefferson – like George Washington and so many other revered Americans – “owned” slaves.

That is why it is so important to also celebrate Juneteenth.  For it is not until all have equal rights that these Jeffersonian truths will finally become self-evident…

Juneteenth (short for June 18^th -June 19^th) marks the two-day period in 1865 that Union General Gordon Granger, along with 2,000 troops, ordered Texans to finally abide by Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.  Granger is said to have announced the contents of General Order No. 3 while standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa.  These contents, while decidedly a big step forward, are far from sounding like unalienable Liberty.  This Order asserted that “all slaves are free” – yet immediately began qualifying that freedom by “advising” all freedmen to “remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages” (not exactly a self-evident pursuit of Happiness). 

It’s no wonder that slaves, as well as so-called “freedmen,” relied heavily upon faith in Kingdoms other than those of this world.  Juneteenth celebrations were not only a time for fishing and barbecues, but also a time for worship and prayer.  Dr. Charles Taylor tells us that religious faith reassured many slaves and freedmen that they were, indeed, “created equal” by God.  He states:  The Black Church provided a haven from the daily oppression slaves faced, but after freedom it was also the center of social activities including the sponsorship of the annual Juneteenth Celebration.

However, all was not rosy within the overall Church.  Social reformer and ex-slave Frederick Douglass had this to say about the historical Church’s unfortunate role in oppression:  I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial, and hypocritical Christianity of this land.

   

Resources

http://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm

http://www.njclc.com/njclchistory.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Granger

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/18943.Frederick_Douglass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

Copyright June 19, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved