Question: What Do You Mean...Free-ish?

General Order No. 3 - National Archives

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. 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.”

 

Early Juneteenth Celebrations

The holiday celebrating Black "independence" could be seen spreading in its first years from one state to another as formerly enslaved people relocated across the country upon hearing of their long-awaited emancipation. There are many similarities between these early celebrations and celebrations of today. We celebrate our ancestor’s struggles for freedom going back to the beginning of enslavement and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. We celebrate the sacrifices and give thanks to all of those who lived and died, paving the way for future generations. So, it’s a celebration!

But then there's the social, legal, economic and political realities associated with Juneteenth, which calls for education through historical truth and personal narratives.

“Slavery didn’t end in 1865. It just evolved. It turned into decades of terrorism, violence, and lynching,” said Bryan Stevenson, delivering the 2017 Tanner Lecture on Human Values. Bryan Stevenson—lawyer, social justice activist, law professor, and founder of Equal Justice Initiative—says the abolition of chattel slavery left the door open for slavery to evolve.

 

Free-ish

 

The social, health and economic reality is that freedom expressed in relative or legalistic terms does not equate to true freedom and equity. When slavery ended Black Codes and Jim Crow took the helm, along with separate-but-equal ideology, redlining, and trappings of the myth of meritocracy. It's what Rich Villodas, Lead Pastor at New Life Fellowship Church in Brooklyn NY calls the-here-but-not-yet reality of racial justice. "It is possible to have freedom and even great success, but still be caught in an unjust, racist world. In the language of New Testament scholars, the kingdom is here, but not yet."

 

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