Then they will learn: the truth behind Juneteenth | Features

As a native Texan, Juneteenth was in my DNA and that of all black Americans in the State, especially children, long before this date made the headlines.

Too young to kiss its historical meaning, we have happily participated in festive events and with fanfare in the schools, parks and churches of Houston. And the propagation of food – fried chicken, potato salad, barbecue – was undeniable and attractive, not to mention the red water and symbol of the symbol of the struggle.

The segregation and Jim Crow reigned when I grew up in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. I was bus to the white communities of my entirely black high school, Philis Wheatley. I drank “colorful” water fountains in public spaces, experienced “colorful” bathrooms in service stations, sitting in balcony seats on the second floor for black cinemas only in white cinemas.

I regret, however, that the painful history of Juneteenth origin was lost in the burst of these festivities. Our teachers did not express their primary students the convoluted details of this period.

How did it really happen?

What was reported, leading to June 19, decreasing a federal holidays in 2021, is that the general of the American army Gordon Granger went on the island of Galveston accompanied by 1,800 soldiers to “inform” the 250,000 slaves that they were free.

This is how the story takes place, even today.

However, a sound bite never captures the whole saga.

It is true that Granger arrived in Galveston on June 19, 1865, 2.5 years after President Lincoln signed the proclamation of emancipation and two months after the Confederates went after the battle in Appomattox. The news of the general ordinance n ° 3, to put an end to slavery, have spread through the state.

What is inaccurate is the involvement that these enslaved people, both African and biracial, were not aware of their imminent freedom.

The news has quickly traveled, even during these periods. The slaves remained informed, even before the arrival of Granger, according to the historian and web journalist of wood. They knew civil war, subsequent proclamation and this freedom was close. There are stories and interviews with former slaves to support this.

Other historians, after wood, corrected this erroneous involvement. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, professor at Harvard University, said in a note that Booker T. Washington labeled the mode of communication by slaves like the “grape telegraph”, more demystifying the idea that blacks were not aware.

Annette Gordon-Reed, professor of Harvard, author of On Juneteenth And a native Texan wrote that Galveston was the largest city in Texas at the time and a major port to send his cotton to the rest of the world. “Port cities are perfect vehicles for the transmission of information to people from all degrees of literacy.”

I followed the Chronicle of Richard Prince newspapers of 2024 entitled “The owners – not slaves – need an alarm clock”. Prince, an old Washington Post Reporter, covers diversity problems in the information media.

Prince interviewed Gregory P. Downs, history professor at the University of California in Davis, who had written a report in 2015 on the myth of the origin of Juneteenth. Among the Downs specialties are the impact transformer of the civil war and the end of slavery on society.

Wrote to Downs: “The intestinal conflict and the institution of slavery could not and did not end well at Appomattox or on the island of Galveston. The end of slavery was not simply a question of issuing declarations. It was a question of forcing the rebels to obey the law.”

Granger was sent to Galveston to suppress the revolt by white planters who wanted to continue slavery. White slavers of other states such as Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee had already walked their human cargo in Texas to flee the new law.

Texas was the last border, the last holding. White planters did not want to “abandon slavery”. In addition, they had cultures that had to be treated. It was their livelihood.

Finally, 50,000 additional American soldiers were sent to Texas and posted in the state to enforce the freedom of blacks. The Freedmen’s Bureau, a federal agency, was created the same year to provide people who are reduced to old slavery in the south of services such as food, refuge, medical care, legal advice and education during the reconstruction period.

Freedom was not easy. It took the Union army for a year (and 40 prosses reported) to fulfill its mission to dismantle white planters institutions in Texas. But blacks suffered even more in these few years. White Texans did not have to free anyone. Brutality has spread. Many blacks now free have been murdered, have made examples of. Getting away could mean death.

But the resilience of a people is there, in each page and the footnote.

Retrospectively, how could our black teachers or parents share this story with their young people? Even a small part of this one? A story of freedom not found in textbooks at the time? It’s shocking and overwhelming. This could frighten young black children.

Let them grow first.

Better to let them celebrate that day and make theirs.

And then they will learn.