Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth. It is always a resonant day because the legacy of slavery continues to echo through the generations. Juneteenth was celebrated almost instantly after emancipation, but its meaning has deepened because the promise of full equality and legal equity has always been withheld. Once the Civil War ended, Jim Crow began. Even the announcement itself, issued by General Granger, contains a hidden threat:

“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.”

Juneteenth now stands as a symbol less that America has renounced its sins than that the war ever goes on. America’s long history of white supremacy remains an active one. The President of the United States calls Latino immigrants “rapists” and “animals,” cribbing from the same, yellowed pages certain white leaders have used for hundreds of years to strengthen racial control. A year and a half after the first black president left office, white supremacy is in vivid vogue again in Washington.

Juneteenth celebrates a moment that happened in 1865. A century and a half later, the evils it addressed continue to flourish.