Can you believe it: Juneteenth (June 19th) – is finally a national holiday – a nationwide holiday commemorating the end of slavery?! Yay! Officially it is called Juneteenth National Independence Day and historically known as Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day, and Emancipation Day.

On Thursday, June 17th, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill that was passed by Congress to set aside Juneteenth, or June 19th, as a federal holiday. “I hope this is the beginning of a change in the way we deal with one another,” he said.

The Senate approved the bill unanimously; however, 14 House Republicans — many representing states that were part of the slave-holding Confederacy in the 19th century — opposed the measure. Fourteen white male Republicans.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states (that had seceded from the United States) “are, and henceforward shall be free” on January 1st,1863, it could not be enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Places like Galveston, Texas, where slaves didn’t get word of their official emanicpation until a certain Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived at Galveston on June 19, 1865, with news that the war had ended and proclaiming freedom for slaves in Texas. That was more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

The following year, the now-free people started celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston. Its observance has continued around the nation and the world since. It is celebrated with concerts, parades and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Now the rest of America has (officially) caught up. ‘Bout time!

Well, 14 House Republicans might still be living in the 19th century. Why didn’t they support the bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday?

Here’s a sampling of their mindset:

“We have enough federal holidays right now. I just don’t see the reason in doing it,” he said. “I don’t think it rises to the level I’m going to support it.”
– Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas

“Let’s call an ace an ace. This is an effort by the Left to create a day out of whole cloth to celebrate identity politics as part of its larger efforts to make Critical Race Theory the reigning ideology of our country. Since I believe in treating everyone equally, regardless of race, and that we should be focused on what unites us rather than our differences, I will vote no.”
– Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana

“I don’t believe it’s healthy to reach into the dead past, revive its most malevolent conflicts and reintroduce them into our age,”
– Rep. Tom McClintock, R-California

“Juneteenth should be commemorated as the expression of the realization of the end of slavery in the United States – and I commend those who worked for its passage. I could not vote for this bill, however, because the holiday should not be called ‘Juneteenth National Independence Day’ but rather, ‘Juneteenth National Emancipation (or Freedom or otherwise) Day.’  This name needlessly divides our nation on a matter that should instead bring us together by creating a separate Independence Day based on the color of one’s skin.”
– Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas

And Tom Tiffany, R-Wisconsin, told a tv station that House Democrats had “used their majority to balkanize our country and fuel separatism by creating a race-based ‘Independence Day.’”

Oh, for fuck’s sake! Get over your yourselves!

Race-based ‘Independence Day’?! No comment.

“We have enough federal holidays” – how much is too much, Rep. Jackson? How does Juneteenth not rise to your level, sir? WHAT is your level? Celebrating the end of slavery in America isn’t worth having an official day to remember?

“It’s not healthy to reach into the dead past”, Rep. McClintock? Is it healthier to keep your mind narrow and closed? Is it healthier to sweep the ugly and painful aspects of our history under the rug than to address and acknowledge past wrongs?

This isn’t about YOU.

Pooh on you!

You could learn a thing or two from Ms. Opal Lee, the 94-year-old activist from Fort Worth, Texas, who is oft-referred to as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth”. At age 89, Lee was determined to walk 1,400 miles from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington D.C. in an effort to create the holiday (she logged 300 miles) and spent years focused on this effort. She told a story to an online audience hosted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, that highlighted how far the nation has come, even as recent months have illustrated how far it still has to go on rights and inclusion.

When she was a child growing up in Texas – a week after nine-year-old Lee moved with her family to an all-White neighborhood – an all-white mob of about 500 surrounded the house, prompting her mother to send Lee to stay with friends. When her father showed up with a gun to protect his home, a local police officer said, in Lee’s telling to the online audience, “If you bust a cap, we’ll let the mob have you.”

Her parents slipped away when it got dark, and the mob tore the house apart and burned it, she said.

The date of the attack was Juneteenth.

“If those people had allowed us to stay in that community, they would have found that we were just like them. All we wanted was a decent place to stay, and my father had a job. My mom was working two,” said Lee. “That was all we wanted. We would have been good neighbors, but they didn’t give us the opportunity to show them that.”

Do those 14 people who voted NO on the bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday even have the slightest clue of the hate and pain that Opal Lee and her family had to endure for decades? Do they give a rat’s ass?

Ms. Lee’s determination and passion to make Juneteenth a holiday is incredibly inspiring to me and so many others. As a former educator whose job involved social work, Lee now strives to ensure future generations know about Juneteenth. She authored a children’s book entitled, “Juneteenth: A Children’s Story” (which I just now learned as I am writing and researching this post).

Lee told her online audience that what’s important is to continue to seek equality and push back when fairness and equality are denied, as with the recent spate of legislation to restrict voting rights and bar some public school teaching on racism:

“We are going to soldier on. We are not going to let those kinds of things stop us from getting over to our children what they need to know.”

Days before she witnessed Congress pass a bill to make Juneteenth a nationwide holiday commemorating the end of slavery, she told CNN:

“I’m not just going to sit and rock, you know?”

Hear hear!

Sources

PBS
CNBC
National Archives
Wikipedia – Emancipation Proclamation
Crosscut
Mvorganizing.org
NPR
USA Today – Juneteenth 2021 celebrations: What to know about the holiday
Wikipedia – Juneteenth
CNN
The Harvard Gazette
MSN
USA Today – Who are the 14 House Republicans who voted against a Juneteenth holiday? And why?
The New York Times