Juneteenth is a deeply emotional moment for enslaved people,
because, for decades, for centuries,
enslaved people, prayed for, hoped for, fought for in the form of slave rebellions, running
away, bought their freedom when they could.
And if you read slave narratives, if you listen to spirituals from the era of slavery,
you know that enslaved people longed for freedom.
(voices singing) Let my people go.
This was something that had been hoped for but many believed may never come.
(voices singing) Let my people go.
Being able to go wherever they wanted. Being able to wander about; for enslaved people,
it was an expression of their freedom.
When I think about Juneteenth, I think about it in the context of Emancipation Day celebrations
that began Jan 1, 1863 and took on a whole new meaning when slavery was formerly abolished
after 1865.
You would have had African American veterans who fought in the Civil War be prominent in
these celebrations, dressed in their military garb.
Speeches from enslaved people, the most prominent Black politicians, singing of hymns,
spirituals, discussions of registering to vote.
Enslaved people celebrating, in public, their newfound freedom, was an act of resistance.
Because we have to remember, slavery came to an end after a four years bloody, bloody civil
war. Still the bloodiest conflict in American history.
Many people in the South and in the nation, who didn’t want to see slavery abolished,
fought tooth and nail to block the 13th amendment.
(voices singing) Coming for to carry me home.
The abolition of slavery created a huge humanitarian crisis in the South.
Suddenly, four million people have very little means to take care of themselves, to support
themselves, and do so in a really, really hostile environment.
So the military was necessary to make sure that enslaved people got the food, the medicine,
the shelter that they needed in order to survive.
They’re also there to protect, to the extent that that was possible, freed people
from violence, from recriminations from slave holders, from Confederates who still hadn’t
given up the fight.
When the last Federal troops leave the South, its a signal to southerners that the Federal government
wasn’t going to put its might into ensuring the civil rights of black people would be
observed.
You have, 20, 30 years later, Black people being lynched in public, and there isn’t
a federal anti- lynching law to protect them.
In most communities in America, there is a history of lynching and racial violence, and
very few communities have marked that, commemorated that.
Every decade since the end of slavery, Black people have been more educated, accrued more
wealth, more status in American society,
every decade since 1865.
But, there’s been one constant, and that constant is
the presence of random racist violence.
What I see in George Floyd’s murder was a white police officer attempting to dominate
and to subdue a black man who was not resisting, who could not resist.
Even though slavery came to an end in 1865, the desire to master and dominate black bodies
do not. And we have never dealt with that.
These are the kind of stark realities that are highlighted during Juneteenth
If Black people’s lives can be expunged through racist violence,
and no one is held accountable,