A Juneteenth Anniversary

Rob and I married on June 19, 1999 in Lake Tahoe, surrounded by family and close friends, all of us oblivious to the Juneteenth holiday. If my history books named the holiday or its significance I do not remember. It's likely that my books and teachers didn't even cover this historically relevant occasion, when "Major Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Texas, to deliver General Order No. 3, proclaiming emancipation" (New Yorker, Jelani Cobb, 6/29/2020 ).  The Civil War had been over for two months and the freedom of enslaved people in Texas had been delayed two and a half years by whites who didn't want to share the news.

Two and a half years of additional enslavement, separation from family, and work without wages certainly lend a bittersweet tinge to the Juneteenth celebration of freedom. When Rob and I married we never had to worry about being forcibly parted, nor about our children being born into servitude, their lives hanging in the wind of a master's whimsy. We've never experienced the grinding intolerance and hatred that generations of black Americans have faced. Our sons do not have to learn elaborate methods of self-protection and defense from police officers.

Black Americans who persevered in observing Juneteenth along with Memorial Day and Independence Day (which was not a true day of freedom for black Americans) in the calendar of summer holidays inspire awe. To hold onto history and celebrate the tenacity and strength necessary to wait not just two and a half years but for four hundred years for true freedom - that's both remarkable and a national shame.

Our country seems to be embracing Juneteenth in the year 2020, 155 years after the original event, elevating it to a statewide holiday, a paid day off, a proposed National holiday. It's past time for our country to elevate emancipation of enslaved peoples to holiday status, but also to reckon with the grievance of having enslaved peoples in the first place.

I'm abashed, surprised and grateful to discover this connection between our anniversary and American history and consider it one more motive to learn more about the history we glossed over in school, appreciate the heroes that we failed to mention and praise the days that we are just now celebrating.