Opinion: Juneteenth- Turn the damn page

Opinion|By Aaron Kershaw

President Joe Biden signed legislation on Thursday, June 17, establishing June 19 as Juneteenth Nation Independence Day, commemorating slavery's abolishment in the United States. The holiday that started in Galveston, Texas, acknowledges the day the final remaining enslaved people of African descent in America learned that the Civil War had ended, that the North prevailed, and they were now free from captivity. But, unfortunately, Galveston slaveholders obscured the truth. Either to prolong Black men and women's free labor on their farms, defy Lincoln's order and the Union army, or out of pure hatred and cruelty that prevented them from accepting that Black flesh would have converted from "property" to "person" as the result of the war. To understand Juneteenth, we must first beg the question from anyone who attended American schools and never heard of the Black Emancipation day.

If the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free the slaves as history books often oversimplify that it had, then what exactly did it do?

What did Emancipation do?

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, officially declaring the end of the practice of slavery in the United States. A bold piece of legislation as it was, it lacked teeth, as the executive order freed enslaved Africans in territories that were in open rebellion against the United States. Translation: The Emancipation Proclamation legally "freed" slaves that it no longer had the authority to liberate. It was a great idea, written with the blood of justice in its ink but out of the president's jurisdiction when he wrote it.

Interestingly, what often goes understated or quite frankly not stated at all, in places where the United States did have the authority to free slaves, such as border states and areas conquered by the Union army, the enslaved were not released by the Union. In other words, the slaves that were in fact under Lincoln's jurisdiction he did not free. However, he created somewhat of a haven for slaves that freed themselves from their masters. Slaves during the Civil War often escaped to Union lines, and federal soldiers would ignore previously established fugitive slave laws that required them to return the enslaved to their captures.

Until Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Union soldiers broke federal law by not returning enslaved Blacks to captivity. Nevertheless, Lincoln's strategy was, in my opinion, sound, and he gets a bad rap for being coy in his mission to end slavery.

Fast-forwarding to June 1865, thousands of enslaved Africans were utterly unaware of the end of the Civil War or their legal liberation.

What is freedom?

There's no better surgeon than the one with many scars. Likewise, there is no better way to define freedom than first to explain subjugation. Subjugation is to bring something or someone under domination and control. Throughout our world's history, wars have ended with the victors subjugating the vanquished, and in the case of enslaved Africans in the United States, the battle for control was both for mind and body. 

On June 19, when the last of the enslaved finally received word of their freedom, I imagine their minds stretched beyond imagination due to the inconceivable thought of liberty. What would it mean for them and their families? Would it mean that they would, for now on own a farm and live a life comparable to their masters? Are they now their master's equals in this new post-Civil War society? Where will they live? Is freedom to live no more than the freedom to die, having never acquired food, clothing, or shelter that their oppressor did not provide them? I doubt I could accurately fathom their thoughts, but what I do know for sure is that Juneteenth showed us that freedom of the mind is just as important as freedom of the body. You can not be free if you don't know you're free.

Knowing is half the battle.

Juneteenth should be a lesson to every man and woman of African descent to inform themselves of the laws, rights, and liberties afforded by the Constitution. An opportunity the enslaved in Galveston, Texas weren’t granted until June 19, 1865. Know whether or not your state is a "Stop and Identify" state. Understand what exemptions may be available to you in the tax code. Know what programs are available for your children to get the education they deserve. Understand how credit works and make it work for you, rather than locking yourself in the jaws of financial slavery. Learn to make suitable investments and understand why property ownership is a key to empowering yourself and building your family's wealth.

If you don't know your rights, then you don't have them. If you don't understand the government's limitations, then its jurisdiction over you will remain unlimited. Advocate that the laws you deem unjust are amended or overturned, or replaced by more fair and suitable legislation.

Too many of my people's minds are stuck on the page in our history bookmarked June 18, 1865. Get informed, my brothers and sisters, and turn the damn page.

"Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson