Juneteenth

America is celebrating Juneteenth this week, a rather new federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, and an occasion which this year collides with the U.S. Army's 250th Anniversary Parade in Washington, DC. Sensibly, Reagan National has suspended its flights for the occasion.

Though father of the nation George Washington publicly denounced the slave trade on moral grounds in the Fairfax Resolves, the American slave of which he so gallantly spoke wouldn’t actually celebrate their freedom until 19 June 1866 — 1 day, two weeks, and 90 years after everyone else. In fact, a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of American slaves wasn’t created until 2021, a couple hundred years and change after some 56 signatories signed on to the Declaration of Independence.

More than 150 years after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, most agree the institution has and continues to shape America today. Four-in-ten say the country hasn’t made enough progress toward racial equality, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. For in 1776, the newly christened United States of America had 2.5 million residents of which 500,000 were African American slaves. Equality — a state of affairs in which all have equal rights, liberties, and status — cannot be achieved retroactively.

While the Civil Rights Act of 1965 leveled the playing field, lifting Blacks from poverty and into the middle class, there is still a startling wage gap between those of color and their White counterparts today. Can the race for wage parity and inclusion reconcile the collective harm to African Americans? Does whitewashing the pump make the water pure?

The Thirteen American Colonies were reluctant to form a union in 1776. Each, as then, were operating as a sovereign nation. Where they agreed was a touchstone called 'equality,' and on their collective independence from Great Britain. Originally drafted as instruction for Virginia's delegates to the Continental Congress in 1774, Thomas Jefferson's pamphlet begins circulating throughout the Thirteen Colonies and stirs consensus. It begins:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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.

The Declaration of Independence in 1776 drafts the nation’s moral code the following year. The first U.S. federal government into force under the Articles of Confederation in 1781, but the document itself said nothing about slavery, instead handing the power to regulate slavery to the individual states. Each and all had indentured servitude and slavery encoded into their state constitutions for the next 100+ years.

Until 1 January 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed all enslaved people in the Confederate States of America. However, it’s enforcement relied upon the presence of Union troops, including members of the United States Colored Troops, who on 19 June 1865 strode into Galveston to oversee Reconstruction following the Civil War. Ordinances were posted in public places, including the Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church:

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 rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

Abraham Lincoln’s EO The Emancipation Proclamation (January 1863) freed southern slaves to fight for the union. It's the deciding factor in the American Civil War (May 1865); enshrines the Thirteenth Amendment into the U.S. Constitution (December 1865); and ensures Juneteenth's first celebration in Galveston Texas the following year (June 19, 1866). And therein lies the horse race for American equality.

Despite Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday in 2021, nearly 243 years of cultural economic, physical, legal, and political inequity against Black Americans in particular has proven to be a difficult bell to unring. Wealth disparity, poverty rates, bankruptcy, housing patterns, educational opportunities, unemployment, incarceration and mortality rates among Blacks are disproportionate for a nation that prides itself on equality. Elizabeth Washington put it this way on Facebook’s Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture page:

We didn't ask for a holiday Joe. We are asking for rectifying the cause and effect and getting the racism out of of govt and police departments, banks, courts and start addressing racism as terrorists attacks. Instead you've irritated and bought out more ignorance from people we interact w daily. Anyways. I'm going to enjoy some watermelon, eating light, my family and keep building.

While Juneteenth celebrations are new in many parts of the country, in Memphis, where the slave trade once thrived, equestrian statues of slave traders and Confederate Generals have been removed to fete the day, and more than 160 monuments and memorials honoring the Confederate States of America and associated figures have been destroyed, removed and disappeared.

Does airbrushing confederate generals from public view serve American history? Can banning DEI initiatives or the Critical Race Theory from public schools retell the American story? Michelle Obama explains, "I am the former First Lady of the United States and I am also a descendent of slaves. My great grandmother (Melvinia Shields) was in bondage in South Carolina. It's important to keep that truth right there."

Because among the nation’s estimated 347 million people today only 48.3 million are Black. That's because their mortality rate is higher, 1.63 million times higher relative to White Americans over the last two decades, according to JAMA. A yield that was planted in American soil of the nation’s founders.

Today, White Americans have 10 times the wealth of Black Americans; Black women die in childbirth at three to four times the rate of white women; and 1 in 3 Black men will likely enter the criminal justice system at some point during their lifetime.

So even tho father of the nation George Washington ordered all 123 of his personal slaves free upon his death — shunting them all rather suddenly from Mount Vernon on 22 May 1802 to scramble for food, shelter, and survival against their white counterparts — providing a fair start or even a sack lunch for the road might've been the more American thing to do.
 
Speaking of American pastimes, dear readers, Major League Baseball recently added the Negro League’s statistics into the Major League’s official stats, but can integrating the segregation-era base hits and home runs of more than 3,400 Black players into the official MLB record database even or settle the score? Does replacing names like Babe Ruth with Josh Gibson whitewash the leaderboards of history? 
 
It was Jackie Robinson who broke the color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on 15 April 1947. For a nation who believes that all men are created equal, a decidedly free and coherent America would have started keeping score then and there.