Photo credit: Carol M Highsmith. Library of Congress

On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger read General Order No. 3, which announced the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas, from a balcony in Galveston Texas, or so the story goes. It was two and a half years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect and 2 months after the Civil War had ended. Even if the enslaved people of Galveston had already heard the news, without the presence of Union troops to enforce it, the proclamation was largely theoretical at that moment.*  I assume I don’t have to tell you that the anniversary of that event is now a federal holiday.

I’ve been thinking about Juneteenth a lot lately. Over the last few years, I’ve come to think of Juneteenth and the Fourth of July as bookends, marking out a space of time to think about the unfinished promise of the American Revolution, a promise we are still struggling to fulfill. More so today than ever.

One of the questions Clint Smith grapples with in the section on Juneteenth in his amazing book, How the Word is Passed, is the perception that Juneteenth is only a “Black thing.” One of the participants in the celebration in Galveston, a white Civil War re-enactor who has played the role of General Granger since 2015, summed up what I believe: “…it’s not ‘a Black thing,’ it’s an American thing. This is the final bit of freedom for all of us. And that’s just so important.”

Back in February, when I was reading my way through Black History month and visiting the George Washington Carver Museum in Austin, Texas , I told myself that we needed to find a Juneteenth celebration to attend—the same way we seek out Memorial Day services.** That didn’t work out. On Juneteenth I’m going to be headed to Minnesota to attend my college reunion. Unless there is a Juneteenth celebration in the Minneapolis airport, I’m going to miss out.

I think it is particularly important to mark that moment today. Since I won’t be attending a Juneteenth celebration in real life,*** I plan to re-read Annetter Gordon-Reed’s equally amazing On Juneteenth  on the plane.

If you attend a Juneteenth celebration, I’d love to hear about it.

*It is worth remembering that the Emancipation  Proclamation only emancipated enslaved people in the rebelling states. Slavery was not abolished in the United States as a whole until the 13th Amendment was passed in December, 1865. Even then, there was a cross-your-fingers-behind-your back clause that allowed involuntary servitude as a a criminal punishment.

**We attended an excellent one this year in the Chicago suburb of Blue Island. It had a small town feel in all the best ways. Highlights included:

• Two elderly members of the local American Legion post served as the color guard—an interesting change from the more familiar use of Boy Scouts. It may have been an expedient decision, but it added depth from the first moment of the service.
• A roll call of all Blue Island residents who had died in foreign wars since the Spanish American war, read by the American Legion chaplain. Each name was followed by the silvery peal of a small bell. I choked up even though I knew none of them.
• An open invitation at the end of the service to anyone who had lost a soldier in the wars to lay a rose at the foot of the flag pole.
• Taps. Always a part of these services. Always heartbreaking.

But I digress.

***Probably. Though the Minneapolis airport could surprise me.