On June 19, 1865, about two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union Army at Appomattox, Virginia, Union Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform enslaved African Americans that the Civil War had ended and slavery had been abolished. Granger’s announcement enforced the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been issued by President Abraham Lincoln nearly two and a half years earlier on Jan. 1st, 1863.
President Biden signed legislation in 2021 that made June 19th an official federal holiday, known as “Juneteenth.” Juneteenth has been celebrated by black communities across the U.S. for more than 150 years and is known as “Juneteenth Independence Day,” “Freedom Day” or “Emancipation Day.”
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Robert Greene II, assistant professor of history at Claflin University and senior editor of the award-winning Black Perspectives blog. Here, he discusses the importance of the Juneteenth holiday and concern that as this annual celebration enters the mainstream, it risks being diluted by commercial exploitation and could lose its connection to America’s history of slavery and racism, as well as its relevance to today’s civil rights struggles.
ROBERT GREENE II: I think on the one hand, both Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth share a problem that virtually all American holidays now have, which is over-commercialization. In a way, they have become as American as apple pie or baseball. But these are issues that I think are particularly acute with holidays. What is the black experience?
So with Martin Luther King Jr Day, even back in the ’70s and ’80s, there was some reluctance amongst activists who were involved with the civil rights movement and other related social justice movements to make King’s birthday a holiday because they foresaw what would happen with it becoming an commercialized holiday.
The same is true of Juneteenth, in the sense that many activists are worried that Juneteenth is a holiday that celebrates a particular form of freedom. The end of slavery. But it doesn’t recognize, number one, what has to be done here and now to ensure that the end of slavery means much more for all Americans.
But number two, many activists and even historians worry that by celebrating Juneteenth in a particularly commercialized or sanitized way, it may also downplay how much black Americans had to do in the late 19th century to ensure those freedoms.
After all, while Juneteenth does celebrate the end of enslavement in Texas and really represents the final and decisive end of the American Civil War, it doesn’t get into the fact that Texas was one of the biggest hotbeds of anti-Reconstruction resistance during the 1860s and 1870s. So historians like Kidada E. Williams, W.E.B. Dubois and so many others have written extensively and Eric Foner about the Reconstruction era.
And while Juneteenth is a celebration of black freedom in a lot of ways, it’s also a reminder that there was a lot of work that still had to be done in the 1860s and ’70s to make black freedom mean something more than just the end of slavery. And I think many activists worry that if you just hold onto visions of the holidays, it’s just commercialized red, white and blue holidays they may lose the significance of thinking about freedom and difference in varying degrees.
SCOTT HARRIS: Professor Greene, what are some of the strategies and approaches to keep Juneteenth focused on the actual meaning of the struggle for freedom in this country rather than let it slip into irrelevance and commercialization?
ROBERT GREENE II: Well, I think there are two ways to do that. Number one is, again, on the national level, making sure that folks understand how Juneteenth ties into both the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. I know that with many holidays we have stripped so many of them of their actual meaning. Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Or two other examples of that as well.
But on a national level, we have to keep the focus on the end of slavery in the Civil War. But I think much of the battle of making Juneteenth really mean something for Americans is going to have to be fought on the local and state level, meaning that black Americans, other Americans are going to have to really either incorporate or foster new local and state traditions to celebrate Juneteenth.
What I mean by that is linking it back to other black celebrations of freedom like Emancipation Day and the like. You have black communities all across this nation that have celebrated the 4th of July, Juneteenth, Emancipation Day, MLK Day, Douglass’s birthday and so forth in their own unique ways. I think finding ways to tie the story of Juneteenth into local stories of black resilience, black freedom and the hopeful triumph of American democracy will be crucial to making sure that Juneteenth remains not just a holiday or they all want a holiday with some real significant meaning.
This, of course, is going to be an uphill battle because folks love holidays. They love the more fun aspects of those. And we shouldn’t lose sight of that either. But we have to keep the true meaning of Juneteenth at the heart of all of this. As Juneteenth has gained national prominence, the very idea of teaching what Juneteenth is about is being suppressed all across the country.
Again, I think this means that we have to do more work locally to make sure that Juneteenth retains its actual meaning. Juneteenth on a local level could mean things like voter registration drives. It could mean things like holding freedom schools or citizenship school and the like to educate folks on not only what Juneteenth means, but what Juneteenth should mean to us in the 21st century as an extension of the push for black freedom, which, as we all know, is really a conversation about the extension of freedom for all Americans.
Read Greene’s June 20, 2022 article titled, “Keeping Juneteenth Radical.”
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Robert Greene II (14:54) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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