Juneteenth: Freedom, Desire and Dreaming of Possibility
Juneteenth was about all the days after June 19.
as a little Black girl raised in Texas, my Juneteenth memories are filled with family, food, drives to the East Side for festivals parades, step shows, Gospel choir concerts, panel discussions and more. it was a glorious annual baptism into Black history, culture, storytelling, faith, celebration and ritualized joy. in retrospect, it was also a critical time for learning and awareness raising.
i grew up in a public school system where our Black history education started with enslavement and ended with Dr. King, with every radical figure and movement erased from the curriculum. in addition to the limited and sanitized Black history that was presented throughout K-12 in the North East Independent School District, our schools taught us nothing to disrupt the poor representation of Black folk in popular media. our syllabi rarely included a Black voice, with the exception of during Black History Month. i attended high school on a campus that was named after Robert E. Lee and “Dixie” was played whenever the football team scored a touchdown, and where i was 1 of 4 Black students in my graduating class. all of my Black history education came from my family, our home churches, and being active in community events, such as the Mahogany Brain Challenge, the annual Black history bowl that happened between the youth of local Black churches and civic organizations. such events and gatherings, including Sunday services, were deeply instrumental for my identity formation.
my childhood taught me that the most profound and transformative knowledge is the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Self, and the knowledge of one’s People and origin. to truly live into the redemptive power of this knowledge, the pursuit of it cannot be sequestered to a single modicum of time, such as a month or a day. it is a communal effort that transcends time. it is a way of life that requires critical thought, unlearning and re-learning, questioning, and reflection. it is finding and feeling the sacred call to learn, to memorialize, to remember. sometimes, even to disavow and to vow anew.
ome years ago, my parents gave me a book entitled, Black Women in Texas History, edited by Drs. Bruce A. Glasrud and Merline Pitre. so, yesterday, I dedicated my Juneteenth to reading it. i read a powerful passage about the hopes and dreams of newly freed people. i learned that their dreams were not just for the day that freedom came, but for the lives they could build on the other side of enslavement.
Generally, they expected the same freedoms that Anglos enjoyed, with similar prerogatives and opportunities. Among other things, educated Blacks wanted full and immediate political and civil rights, while the masses wanted land redistribution and educational opportunity. African Americans - women as well as men - also hoped that emancipation meant a new home, a new job, a new social life, complete religious freedom, and the right to unrestricted travel: the seek better employment and to locate lost family members. They desired to have legal marriages, and sought family stability. 1
Freedwomen had a particular set of hopes. Some had to do with leaving hard field labor behind for good, in favor of domestic work inside the home. Most of their had to do with the wellbeing of their children:
On gaining their freedom, some mothers immediately began planning for their offspring, wanting them to have the same benefits as whites, including the right to an education and to be exempt from work. Some even thought of simple things like dress.2
What struck me about this passage was the seeming simplicity of these wishes. The fairness. It would seem that in the light of freedom, the inequities, inequalities, and the disparities would be made right. Even though we’ve lived to see how long and slow that process would be, I’m moved by the faith, the moral logic, and the consciousness that are symbolized by these simple desires.
I imagine that those first freedom moments were steeped in romanticism and an earnest sense of possibility. I imagine that they were filled with a sense of wonder about how their lives would be different, and curiosity about what would happen next. It is clear that their desires stretched far beyond freedom day. Freedom, as sweet as it was, was merely the beginning of a new chapter in their stories, both individual and shared. Their hearts were already launched into the future. Their imaginations stirred as they dreamed of what could be, for themselves and for their children.
To me, Juneteenth is about the day. It’s about the win of federal recognition. It’s about the celebration, the food, the togetherness, the learning. And, it’s also about all the other days. All the days thereafter. It’s about the fact that my ancestors’ dreams are still largely unfulfilled. While the day is now a national holiday, our days, by and large, are still plagued with the ongoing peril of civil and voting rights, police violence, economic disparities, the Black maternal mortality crisis, the prison industrial complex, misgynoir and anti-Black rape culture, the continued rise and normalization of white supremacy and white Christian nationalism, Black and Brown families being separated at the border and dying in Border Patrol custody, and the list goes on. It’s kind of hard to be excited about a day, when our “everyday” days are still so vulnerable and little to no policy changes have created more security and stability.
Our ancestors knew that freedom was about far more than a day. They knew that freedom was about every day, and all the days that may pass as we dream, push, fight, pray, and then dream again. They knew that it was about the good days, the bad days, and the days that couldn’t be categorized. They knew that freedom was about showing up every day, to reckon with reality until it bent into the realities that we spoke, prayed and worked into being. I believe that this was the knowledge that preserved their spirits amidst the continued horrors of Reconstruction.
I hope we know this, too.
Bruce A. Glasrud and Merline Pitre, eds., Black Women in Texas History, (College Station, TX, Texas A&M University Press, 2008), 38-39.
Ibid., 39.