Juneteenth
and the Premise of a Promise -
Rodney Coates
In 5 days, we shall celebrate yet another Juneteenth
here in America. This is a celebration
of what many consider the end of slavery for Blacks in this country. Two and a half years after the signing of the
Emancipation Proclamation, this celebration was accomplished as federal troops
arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865.
But as with all historical events, this one is filled with ironies and
paradoxes, hopes dashed and dreams unfulfilled.
This event, to many, represents the duplicity of power, the cruelty of
complacency, and the willingness of many to forestall, deny and ignore the plight
of the enslaved person. Consequently, as
I will argue in this talk, the so-called freedom of the enslaved person was a
check that continually has come back -marked insufficient funds, they were
offered the premise of a promise yet unfulfilled.
Let
me begin.
The first question is why the news of freedom took two
and a half years to come to Texas. Some
argue that it was deliberately delayed placating angry slaveholders still in
denial. Others say that the federal
troops waited for the order to give the enslavers one last chance to get the
cotton harvest. But then, we must also
understand that the war, our bloodiest ever fought, had nothing to do with
slavery and everything to do with power.
The enslaved were just another set of pawns in this political gambit as our
nation's leaders, North and South, battled to see whose version of America
would prevail—one controlled by Northern Industrial Elite and the other
controlled by Southern Plantation Elite. There was no concern about whether the enslaved
would be free, as acknowledged by Abraham Lincoln:
My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to
Liberia, -- to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me,
that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the
long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If
they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten
days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world
to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as
underlings? Is it quite certain that
this betters their condition? I think I
would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough
for me to denounce people upon. What
next? Free them, and make them
politically and socially, our equals? My
own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those
of the great mass of White people will not. October 16, 1854: Speech at Peoria, Illinois
Ultimately Lincoln did what was expedient to force the
rebellious slaveholding states back into the Union; he freed those enslaved
people only in the states in rebellion.
That is, he released those enslaved people he had no control over. No enslaved people were freed from those
states loyal to the Union and not in rebellion.
And so, the Emancipation Proclamation held out the premise of the
promise of freedom. A premise that never
came to pass as the "great mass of White people" refused to allow it
to come into being. The premise -that
All Men (humans) are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights. The least of these
rights being "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," which
constituted the premise that the Emancipation Proclamation promised would go
unfulfilled, a check written and returned marked insufficient funds. And it is this check that constitutes the
paradox of American justice that yet goes unfilled. But how did we get to this American paradox?
The
American Paradox of Race – The Freedman's Dedication to Freedom
The civil war ended on April 9, 1865,
as Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate troops to General Ulysses S. Grant
at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. Thus ending the costliest
domestic wars America has ever fought as an estimated 1.56 million Union and
800,000 Confederates forces battled for supremacy. At the close of the war, some 4 million Blacks
(constituting 88% of all Blacks) were now free, but another 250,000 in Texas languished
in slavery. Neither Lincoln nor
Washington had any real impact on Texas, primarily because there were not
enough Union troops to enforce the order. Such force was not available
until after the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and General
Granger's regiment arrived two months later. Listen as
Granger declares their freedom in his General Order Number 3 was:
The people of Texas were
informed that all enslaved people were free following a Proclamation from the
Executive of the United States. This involves an absolute equality of
rights and rights of property between former enslavers and enslaved people, and
the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer
and hired laborer.
The freedmen are
advised to remain quietly at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be
allowed to collect at military posts, and that they will not be supported in
idleness either there or elsewhere.
I cannot help but wonder if any Whites
were advised to "remain quietly at their present homes, and work for wages
. . . and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
"Never in the history of this
country was such a restriction or expectation placed on Whites. As we
will see later, these were the seeds through which the infamous Jim Crow codes
and laws would ensue. But for now, let
us consider the response of the formerly enslaved person.
The responses of the formerly
enslaved people ranged from shock to exaltation, from acts of retribution to
praise, and from prayers and celebration to cries of despair and loss.
Some left not only the plantation but the South, seeking to reestablish
connections with family and communities broken and shattered as a consequence
of slavery. Others stayed to attempt to take on freedom where they were enslaved.
Regardless, these enslaved people challenged America to recognize their
equality as they sought to establish themselves as free people within America.
Ironically one of the first things
these free people sought to do was to embrace education. It should be
recalled that under slavery, it was illegal in many states to teach any Blacks
-either free or enslaved - reading and writing. But, even under slavery, Blacks
facing severe punishment still found ways to support and encourage
education. Therefore it is not strange that after the war and
Emancipation, the now freedman gathered in homes, cellars, sheds,
meetinghouses, and even under the shade tree in the fields where they worked
the crops to learn. They learned from
each other, teachers, clergy, or older family members. They not only learned to read and write, but
they retained their history as a people. Imagine the scene recorded
from South Carolina, as a six-year-old girl sits beside her mother, grandmother,
and great-grandmother (over 75 years old), all-embracing learning and reading
for the first time. From the beginning,
many of the freedmen distrusted the scalawags and, carpetbaggers and former masters,
demanded to learn to read for themselves, to learn math, and to read the Bible
firsthand. They established their schools -freedom schools to accomplish
this. These freedom schools were sometimes
funded by White aid and benevolent societies from the North, such as the
American Missionary Association and the National Freedmen's Relief Association,
Sabbath schools, and night schools. But most of the monies to fund these
schools came from the newly freed Americans, who privately sponsored their
schools.
One example of these churches/schools
is in In Sharpsburg, Maryland, and a small church known as Tolson's Chapel. Tolson's
Chapel was built by blacks just two years after the end of slavery in 1864. For
over thirty years, between 1868-1899, this one-room building was a church and
school near the Civil War Battle of Antietam.
The history of the schools housed in Tolson's Chapel illustrates how
African Americans across the former slaveholding states created and sustained
schools during Reconstruction. Here the
dreams of freedom were born as local Blacks sought to educate themselves and
their children.
Consequently, as
African Americans established their schools and advocated public education,
they claimed education as a basic right as citizens. This dedication of
the former enslaved to education laid the foundation for publicly funded
schools for Blacks and Whites throughout the South and border states.
These newly freed Americans sought
to become economically independent and exercise their full civil and political
rights along with the right to education. One of these efforts' most
significant outcomes was the establishment of all-Black towns across
America. These Freedmen's Towns, or All-Black towns, were established by
or for a predominantly African-American population. Many were founded by
formerly enslaved people and existed in many of the former Southern
states. For example, before the end of segregation, Oklahoma boasted
dozens of these communities, while in Texas, some 357 freedom colonies have
been verified and located.
For a brief period, the promise of
freedom flourished as Congress passed, then slowly, the States ratified the
so-called Reconstruction Amendments. These three amendments, the 13th,
14th, and 15th, abolished slavery and attempted to
guarantee equal protection of the laws and the right to vote.
So briefly, the illusion of freedom existed as the 13th
Amendment prohibited involuntary servitude.
The principle of citizenship was ratified with the 14th Amendment for
all born or naturalized and granted the right to vote and decide who could hold
office. These rights were again
reinforced with the 14th Amendment, which established that full
citizenship rights could not be abridged due to race, color, or previous
condition of servitude. Of interest is
that all debts of those associated with either the insurrection or rebellion
against the United States and even the claim for the loss or Emancipation of enslaved
people were considered unenforceable, and all claims shall be held illegal and
void. The problems were apparent as the Constitution denied women
the right to vote for the first time. Unfortunately, these amendments did not provide
any enforcement provisions nor preclude the former states or its members from
seeking to nullify, negate, or circumvent the laws.
No sooner than these
amendments were ratified, and after the assassination of Lincoln, state laws
and federal court decisions began to erode and nullify much of these throughout
the late 18th century. Many states passed what would be known
as the Jim Crow laws that limited the rights of African-Americans. And
decisions made by the Supreme Court, such as the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873,
undermined and prevented several guaranteed rights unenforceable by holding
that these privileges or immunities could not be extended to rights under state
law, and the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896, which established "separate
but equal" and gave federal approval to all the Jim Crow laws. These
rights would not be guaranteed until the Brown V. Board decision in 1954, the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The responses of Southern Whites to
the newly freed persons were not limited to Legislative or Court actions.
Responses by Whites
A cartoon
by illustrator Thomas Nast shows a member of the White League and a member of
the Ku Klux Klan joining hands over a terrorized Black family. (Library of Congress)
As the
American Blacks celebrated their new freedom, many Whites in the South mourned
the passage of what they believed was "their greatness." For
many Southern Whites, this was personal and represented a communal defeat,
marking the demise of the White Man and a time of dismay. They mourned
the loss of traditions, customs, families, property, and a whole way of life built
with Blacks' blood, sacrifices, and lives. Many considered leaving, while
others began to retreat into nostalgia and fictitious memories of the Old South
and mourning the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The first
Confederate memorial associations started appearing in 1865 and 1866 as they
built cemeteries and monuments throughout the region. Others created
groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, which resorted to violence, murder, and
terror to oppose this new freedom. The story of Tulsa and Black
Wall Street, and hundreds of other Black colonies, illustrates the terror that
ensued as the Africans sought to create their freedom.
No sooner than the 13th,
14, and 15th Amendments were enacted - which provided legal and
civil protections to formerly enslaved people - Members of the Ku Klux Klan
began systematic terrorist attacks against Black citizens for exercising their
right to vote, running for office, and serving on juries. Congress quickly
responded by passing a series of Enforcement acts of 1870 and 1871 which
attempted to end such violence and empower the president to use military force
to protect African Americans. The Act of 1870, for example, even
prohibited groups of people from banding together "or to go in disguise
upon the public highways, or the premises of another '' to violate another's
constitutional rights. Legislative intent aside, these acts did nothing
to diminish the harassment of Black voters across the South. Seeing the
lack of enforcement, the Senate passed two more Force acts, one known as the Ku
Klux Klan Act, designated to enforce the 14th Amendment and the
Civil Rights Act of 1866. A second Force Act passed in 1871 aimed to
place national elections under the federal government's control and empower
federal judges and U.S. marshals to supervise local elections. Then the Third Force Act of April 1871 gave
the president the power to use the armed forces to combat those who conspired
to deny equal protection of the laws and to suspend habeas corpus, when
necessary, to enforce the act. These acts temporarily assisted in ending
the violence and intimidation, but the formal end of Reconstruction in 1877
opened the floodgates for the disfranchisement and violence targeting African
Americans. Absent these protections and the insurance of the Jim Crow
Laws throughout the South – it was essentially open season.
Lynching became the most
frequent weapon to terrorize Blacks and force them into submission. By 1877,
lynchings were so normalized that they were flagrantly committed as public
displays. People dressed up invited friends and neighbors, and advertised
in local newspapers. Large crowds, whole families, would show up to watch
Blacks get their "justice" All too often, Blacks were punished
for being prominent, free, and successful. Many Whites -rich and poor -
used these to keep the Blacks in their place. Often the myth of the Black
man as a sexual predator was used to fire up the masses. All too often, the real insult was that
African Americans were perceived as being political and economic threats, not
sexual predators who wanted to foster integration to assault innocent White
women. Lynching and white riots were used to teach them a lesson, put them
in their place, and serve as a warning to any other Black arrogant enough to
challenge White supremacy. From the
late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century,
close to 5,000 Blacks were lynched. In Mississippi alone, some 500 Blacks
were lynched from 1800 to 1955. Lynching was not restricted to the South,
as over 35 people died in Ohio from lynching from 18972 to 1932. Few were
innocent, as a full range of Whites - from journalists to legislators, from
police to judges, from labor leaders to clergy -were anything but innocent
bystanders.
But Blacks were not content to
sit by and be lynched, as Blacks voted with their feet and initiated the largest
domestic migration movement in modern history as millions of Black relocated
from the most violent Southern regions to what was presumed to be a more
tolerant North.
But the White mob was not content to
lynch single individuals; soon, whole towns were annihilated.
Over the last few weeks, America has
become absorbed and shocked by the massacres in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921.
But we should point out that Tulsa was just one of at least 50 separate events
where African Americans were violently expelled from their homes, towns, cities,
and counties within the United States - most of these occurring from just after
the Civil War until 1954. To date, few have been brought to trial, even
though photos by the tens of thousands still can be found throughout the
internet. Never has domestic terrorism, public murders, and riots been so
celebrated.
And, of course, even as lynching and
wholescale black massacres began to wane, the Black church continued to be a
central target of America's racial angst. And herein lies an irony, during the whole of
the 19th century, only one church -the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal
Church in Charleston, South Carolina was burned down in 1822. Over the
next few decades and into the 20th century, an average of 6 churches were
burned each decade. Then we hit the end of the 20th century, where over 30
black churches were burned in just 18 months between 1995 and
1996. Congress finally passed the 1996 Church Arson Prevention Act. Clinton established a Presidential Commission
to document the burning of Black Churches, and they reported as many as 827
Churches might have been burned. But the spate of church burnings had not
ended; from then to 2018, another 16 black churches were burned. Last year
7 Black churches were targeted. These
attacks were attacks aimed at the spiritual core of The African American
Community. They sought to kill that spirit, but what they did was fire up
the community. Resounding calls could be heard as Blacks said Hell Naw, we
aren't going to run.
And what of the costs of all this
violence? During the period of slavery in the United States. If enslaved people had been reimbursed for
their time in forced servitude, it would have been estimated to range from
$18.6 trillion to $6.2 quadrillion. (compounded annually from 3% to 6%), And
another $35 trillion to $16 quadrillion for loss of land and property.
Finally, no one has calculated the cost of pain and suffering over these 400+
years, but again it would be in the quadrillions. This has been the cost
of White violence perpetrated against Blacks.
Where do we go from here? We start with a new premise and
articulate a new set of promises.
Toward
a new premise and promise
Even as I
write this, I know the triple threats Blacks face. These threats
-curtailment and suppression of voting, police, racially motivated violence and
attacks on Black Churches, and attempts
to shut down critical race theory. As we examine these threats, we
recognize that they are not isolated but represent a systemic attack upon the
Black community across America. Throughout
American history, whenever the nation has been confronted with an existential
threat, it has targeted racial groups, particularly blacks. This targeting has taken multiple forms of
personal attacks to mob violence, from lynching to massacres, but of late,
these have been institutionalized as the state has become the instrument of
violence. Hence, we note the mass
incarceration of black, particularly black males, and the war on drugs. We report the militarization of the police
and the over-policing of our neighborhoods.
We note the harsher sentencing and racialized use of the death
penalty. We note the increasing
likelihood of black children being expelled from schools, our churches bombed,
and our livelihoods continually threatened.
These continual assaults have increased psychological trauma, mental
health, and life expectancies. Blacks,
however, have not responded as victims but as victors as each generation has
fought to regain what was lost, reignite the fire of freedom, and walk with
dignity, head held high. As we celebrate
another Juneteenth, we celebrate this spirit of victory even as we acknowledge
the tragedies that continually beset us.
The current attack on
voter rights has a long and tortuous history, dating back to 1865.
We have been down this road before, where in the name of freedom and democracy,
many states with heavy black voters developed a system of checks to restore our
faith. Strange, none of these on the surface were racist. All of
them made sense until they were applied. And that application, not
particularly the laws, resulted in the wholesale suppression of the Black
vote. A suppression that lasted some 100 years, from the Voters rights
act of 1865 to the Voters rights act of 1965. And here we are
again. States across America are debating and passing legislation
that aims to install the 1776 project and reject the 1619 project. The
argument that Critical Race Theory is a racial attack on whites is absurd and
dangerous. Critical race theory does not blame current Whites for
what happened in the past, but it does point out the pain currently being
delivered by that past. It challenges much of our historical accounts
that belie historical realities. It helps balance the scales by telling
all of the stories of our history, not just the ones we feel comfortable
about. It means these stories from the vantage point of those that were
victimized. Imagine the story of rape or
incest or any other crime. Now imagine that we only hear the side of the
rapist or perpetrator and not the victim. Critical Race Theory recognizes
that the more sides of the stories we tell, the more balanced the histories
will be. And finally, the problem with
police violence is not a problem with the police but the police system.
That is to say; policing has been militarized to the point where our guardians
have become warriors.
As a consequence,
police go to war daily. As a veteran, I can only imagine what
it's like to be involved in a never-ending battle. This is a war with
no clear lines between us and them, between combatant and defender.
Perhaps, it's time that we declare a truce and rethink the purpose of
policing. In the process, we might decide that the problem is not the police
and courts but our schools and training. The issue is not bad kids but
bad opportunities. Let's help to create hope and better opportunities by
increasing the success rates in our schools and life chances. We might
see that we need less police. And in those situations where we do need
police, maybe they need to be accompanied by drug and family counselors, social
workers, and psychologists.
Dealing with
these threats will define the current struggle for justice and equality
originally promised on Juneteenth. And
we have a long history of dealing with existential threats and sustaining our fight
for justice and equality. Here let us remember that struggle and the
reality of our self-declared freedom.
In
1775, English scholar Samuel Johnson wrote, "How is it that we hear the
loudest yelps for liberty among . . .Negros?" The first antislavery
societies were founded the same year the Declaration of Independence was
penned. And while some debated the compensation that slaveholders should
receive, many argued for payment for the enslaved. When asked about the Emancipation of the
enslaved person, William Lloyd Garrison remarked that Emancipation was not
enough; we must be free from the caprice of man's cruelty to man.
Frederick Douglass that the Negro must own their solves and their futures; they
must have universal, equal rights and liberty. In an 1837 letter,
Angelina Grimke remarked that the freedom of blacks was a human and moral right
that could not be denied. Black history is American history; Black
liberation is the essence of American liberation. Until all realize the
promises of the Declaration of Independence, of life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness – none will experience these promises.
Although victimized
repeatedly, we have not succumbed to becoming victims. We have been and
continue to be overcomers. We have rebuilt what has been destroyed and relocated
where we have not been wanted. What we
have not done is abandoned our quest to breathe free. Nor have we failed
to achieve in every field of human endeavor -we have served in every war since
the revolutionary war with courage; we have built and continually rebuilt our
homes, communities, and lives. And what of these accomplishments, under
duress? Mathew Henson and Admiral Robert Peary explored the North Pole in
1909; Jesse Owens demonstrated to Hitler what a black man could do by winning
four gold medals in the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Jackie Robinson became
the first Black to enter the major leagues in 1947, even while blacks played
the sport for over 60 years. We have
Althea Gibson, Venus Williams, Coco Gauff, and Naomi Osaka, who might be the world's best
tennis player. With pen and prose, Gwendolyn Brooks won the
Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950.
We have this amazing
young poet, Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, an award-winning
writer, cum laude graduate of Harvard, who shows what the future looks like. We have Barack Obama, who became the first Black
president of the United States. And Kamala
Harris, the first black female vice president of the U.S. African American
innovations, impacts all aspects of our lives. We eat the potato chips,
first created by George Crum in 1853; many of us have played with the Super
soaker invented by NASA scientist Lonnie G. Johnson. Mobile communications owe their beginning to
the 1887 invention of the telegraph by Granville T. Woods. Open heart
surgery, pioneered by Daniel Hale Williams in 1893, has saved millions of
lives, as those committed by Charles Drew and his invention of a technique to
preserve blood plasma. And even now, we are witnessing the miracle of a
covid vaccine thanks in part to the work done by Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett.
We do not wait or
expect freedom from legislation or judicial decrees. We are free by
virtue of being – humans. As we enjoy another Juneteenth, we shall
continue to persevere, serve, invent, and excel. By any means necessary, we will not only
continue to survive but also thrive and set new standards of achievement.
It is more than our right; it is our mandate from the Creator of all. We
will settle for full accountability and responsibility for past wrongs.
While we recognize that reparations are due, we have no confidence that any
will come soon. No, we will not take any
more promissory notes. We will, however, demand that schools and
courts, political institutions and economic systems, police and legislatures
act responsibly, equitably, and justly for us and our prosperity. To
guarantee these premises, we promise to do the following: litigate, assemble,
agitate, propagate, and instigate a continual revolutionary struggle. We
shall do more than overcome; we will more deliberately, meticulously, and
strategically utilize and maximize our voting, economies, and communities to
foster change and new realities.
Thank you…
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