By Janice K. Neal-Vincent, Ph.D.,
Contributing Writer,
On July 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued an executive order that declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate State legally free. However, the decree would not take effect until the clock struck midnight at the start of the new year.
On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first historical legacy of what is known as ‘Watch Night’ services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect.
At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered, as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States.
However, not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later.
Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas.
“Keep in Your Heart the Blood”
Blood spilled by those who fought for freedom.
The blood of the slave as the whip touches the flesh.
Do not be enslaved, be now empowered.
Feel it, taste it, drink it.
Gather it in buckets, bathe in it.
Bathe your children in it.
Keep In Your Heart the Blood.
The last eight lines of this poem by Kristina Kay is a mindset adopted by numerous poets, speakers and performance artists who are attuned to Juneteenth, the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a legal holiday in 1986. Juneteenth – celebrated on June 19th – is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery upon the United States’ soil. It has provoked much thought and expression for past and present generations.
From the 1935 poem, “Let America be America Again,” by that prolific writer – Langston Huges – to the 2022 poem (now a book), “Free at Last,” by Sojourner K. Rolle and Alex Bostic, and works of poets few and far between, come much discussion and debate about the saga of the enslaved and locked out peoples of African descent who were forced to leave their home and build a country that targeted, robbed, brutalized, rejected and despised them, and never intended that they be free. Despite harsh treatment, there was something within these people that gave them hope for a better day. While longing to be free, mental escape became physical escape. Spiritual songs were messages for survival from the slavers’ whip and empowerment.
When they came upon the scene, Juneteenth celebrations produced wakeup calls that had not been recognized by many. For the most part, these festivities were disconnected from everyday encounters. At some point, however, people began to see contrasts between 4th of July occasions and Juneteenth occasions.
“I learned what Juneteenth was, after I participated in a program for high schoolers at Grambling State University. Still, I didn’t feel connected to the holiday, until I began to feel uncomfortable celebrating the 4th of July. I realized that most of my ancestors would have been enslaved or still on the African continent in 1776. Although Black communities in the U.S. experienced freedom at different times, Juneteenth as a federal holiday gives us a chance to recognize, as a nation, that July 4th doesn’t represent the experiences of all or most of our ancestors. It was an aspiration or ideal, not realized until the most vulnerable of us were freed by June of 1865,” explained Dr. Jodi Skipper (associate professor of Anthropology & Southern Studies at The University of Mississippi).
Skipper’s comment calls to attention Frederick Douglass’s Fourth of July Oration which referenced the hypocrisy of slavery. It also brings to mind what actress Ruby Dee said many years ago during her narrative at The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN: “The movement is not over until all persons are free.”
Backing these assertions is Dr. C. Sade Turnipseed (assistant professor of History at Jackson State University). Candidly speaking, she said, “We must confront the profound contradiction of our history – that a ‘nation conceived in liberty’ was simultaneously born in shackles. Today, we are presented with an opportunity to amend the injustices of our American past. By embracing what is fair, humane and genuinely decent, we can chart a righteous path forward. Let us act with love, for until all are free, none [is] free.”
The Mississippi Link publisher Jackie Hampton contributed to this article.
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