The Juneteenth Awakening

The Juneteenth Awakening, when was your awakening to Juneteenth? When did you first learn about the Juneteenth Day Celebration? I would venture to guess that if polled at least 75 percent of black Americans still haven's heard about Juneteenth, and if I increase the poll audience to include everyone, black and white the number of people unaware of Juneteenth history goes up closer to 80 or 90 percent. You would think that such an important historical event would have been front and center in my school history book, but, when I was a child Juneteenth was not mentioned in my elementary, Jr. High, or High School history book and for sure it wasn't a subject covered in any of my history classes up to and including college.

It's really easy to suffer from the feeling of entitlement and superiority when you grow up believing that you/your race has invented, created, discovered, and built everything on earth. Especially when those promoted facts are presented in the history books you go to school to learn from. Luckily in this day and age, historic facts about African and African American accomplishments are starting to leak out and nowadays that also includes information and facts about the Juneteenth Day Celebration.

In my case, I really can't put all the blame on the places of education I have attended over my lifetime. Both of my parents were from the south one from the very state where Juneteenth was memorialized on June 19, 1865. I had always heard that my parents left the south for a better life, but I had always thought that meant moving from the farm to the big city, when in reality what those words really meant was not wanting to raise their children in the Jim Crow south. (thank you, aunt Opal, for that info)

The fact that the work was plentiful, and paid better during WWII was also a BIG PLUS. Juneteenth may have come from the south (Texas) but during the 50s and the Civil Rights 60s, Juneteenth Celebrations were held to a minimum, if at all. Whatever their reason my parents, who were from Juneteenth country, never mentioned the Juneteenth celebration to any of us children.

So my Juneteenth Awakening would be almost 38 years in coming. Prior to that, I would certainly have failed the poll question: "have you ever heard of the oldest African American Celebration in the nation Juneteenth?"

My hope is that as more Americans become aware of the Juneteenth Celebration and that the celebration celebrated by some states becomes a national holiday. Juneteenth history should be taught in schools so that generations of black and white Americans will be made aware of the sacrifices and plight of the African ancestors so that all of their African descendants still suffering from racism will not only remember their struggle but learn how to better use some of the advances African Americans have already made and as a nation go after racism the same way this nation went after slavery.

I also hope that our history doesn't forget about all of the white abolitionists who were instrumental in putting an end to slavery by maintaining the underground railroad that transported runaway slaves to freedom until it was no longer needed for the clandestine system and for helping to create the oldest African American Celebration in this nation, Juneteenth.