juneteenth

I’m sure we can all agree that somewhere in our history books there was a mention of June 19, 1865.  I’m sure for most it was like the many other stories of oppression, hidden in plain sight.

How do you teach something yet still hide it?  How do stories of the lives of our Black brothers and sisters be told but not be of equal celebration?  How can June 13th not be a government holiday? How could we have not seen that this was a vital day to becoming America we know it to be?

Without this moment in time, many of the greatest moments in history by the hands of our Black brothers and sisters wouldn’t have existed.  Without this moment, some of the most beautiful children would have never been born.  Without this day in our country’s history, we would not have been impacted by some of the greatest influencer’s in our society.

So why has Juneteenth been hidden in plain site?  A day that memorializes June 19, 1865, when Union general Gordon Granger read orders in Galveston, Texas, that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free.  Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two-and-a-half years earlier, and the American Civil War had ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most “remote” of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent.

Why are not more of these moments in history celebrated like every other American Holiday when we, the masses, defeated evil.  We are witnessing a moment like no other before us, not because we are standing together, but because THEY are finally listening.