August 20th 1619

While a lot of us in social media land have chosen to celebrate the last day of slavery in the U.S. the Nation Association for the Advancement of Color People, the NAACP has decided to celebrate August 20th, 1619, which at the writing of this post is just a little over 400 years ago when the first hand full of African slaves taken out of Africa arrived in Port Comfort, British North America.

The almost two dozen African slaves that arrived August 20the, 1619 were the first legitimately documented African slaves in what is now the U.S. even though it's believed that undocumented African slaves were actually in this country even before someone officially logged them in. August 20th, 1619 marked be beginning of a worldwide-cruelty that would last for over 400 years. So let me try to explain why I feel that slavery was a particular type of cruelty to the African race that I would much rather celebrate the ending of, rather than its beginning.

Slaves were a commodity that many different nations traded in, so during those 400 years of slavery in the U.S., the ships participating in the wholesale removal of African people from Africa flew the flags from many different nations. After hundreds of years, the British were among the first to put an end to slavery in Great Britain, the British then joined with others to blockade to west coast of Africa from illegal slave traders, like America, demonstrated a skill at evading the British blockade and continuing to remove generations of young men and women from their African homeland on a scale so vast that even though thousands of slaves lost their lives on the journey to the Americas the slave lives lost were looked at as simply the cost of doing business.

In the end, our ancestors would no doubt be pleased to learn that slavery would eventually be done away-with in the Americas. Something the ancestors prayed for and entertained rumors about but did not live long enough to see.  They might even be surprised to learn that my thoughts about reparations have evolved because after 400 years of being under-appreciated, under-represented, underpaid, and under-educated reparations in the form of opportunities like getting back black-owned farmland seized by the local governments in the south, or reparations in the form of college education and job opportunities where there was once none all goes toward building a stronger America, if you ask me.

And, after 400 years a lot has changed in America; slavery is gone, Port Comfort where the first African slaves first landed in North America today has been renamed: Fort Monroe, in Hampton, Virginia and after 400 years of slavery there are still some things that remain the same with a few minor differences; the chains have been mainly replaced by debt (okay I had to throw that one in) and many of the injustices our slave ancestors suffered from, during slavery, still exist today white supremacy, mass incarceration, and racial violence. So when it comes to celebrating August 20th, 1619 the beginning of slavery in this country and June 19, 1865, the end of slavery in the U.S. they are both important dates, in my opinion.

The Internet of people, places, and things will continue to make it easier for those willing to do the looking/Internet searching to come up with alternate times worthy of celebration by African American people. I would not be surprised if one day some one's Internet search leads them to the first African slave to be put on a ship bound for the Americas, or perhaps it will lead to the first African mother to give birth to the first African slave to reach the U.S. While that future day might still be significant to the beginning of slavery in the Americas, it's the last day of slavery in this country, Juneteenth, that will always be the most significant to me.

Celebrate Juneteenth Every Month

I like the way, Pastor Gwendolyn Thrower from Ocilla, Georgia, thinks when it comes to the Juneteenth Celebration. Her belief is based on the premise until you know and understand where you've been as a race it will be very hard to determine where you're going. She believes that a lot of millennials are not educated on the real meaning behind the oldest African American celebration in the U.S.

It has been my experience to chant with millennials, the ones I raised, and others about Juneteenth and I was surprised to see that they had problems with the facts about even more recent history such as the Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther Kings name came up a lot but when it came to an understanding of all the lives lost during the civil rights movement in this country many had no ideas of what it has cost in lives to be able to walk into a voting booth and cast a ballot. And for the African American young, and old, registered to vote, seldom is the African American voter turnout 100%, but that's another post.

Pastor Thrower said that the people who started the Juneteenth Celebration used to go from community to community with the Juneteenth Celebration. Even though the celebration started in June (June 19) because it was a traveling celebration there would be a Juneteenth celebration in June, July, August, September or whenever after the initial start in June.

And to be honest, if I had lived back then I would not have been opposed to traveling, preferably up north, and celebrating Juneteenth in every town along the way, but nowadays most communities are lucky to be able to have a single Juneteenth celebration, once a year. How do you feel about the idea to celebrate Juneteenth every month? I would much rather see an approved educational curriculum that made Juneteenth a solid part of a history textbook used in school classrooms so that everyone will understand and hopefully appreciate what the meaning of the end of slavery and the beginning of the oldest African American celebration in the U.S. meant to our American African ancestors.

So I appreciate Pastor Thrower for speaking out loud about our ancestors who did celebrate Juneteenth once a month. That might be one way to make sure the history and significance of Juneteenth are realized by this entire nation. I think that Pastor Thrower is well-deserving of the Humanitarian Award she was given for helping her community there in Ocilla, Georgia and for her organizing the local Juneteenth celebration there too. I have participated in organizing a Juneteenth even a time or two over the years, but I have to be honest, currently, I can not see having a Juneteenth celebration every month, not with all the organization that is required to get the city, and the local community all on the same page come Juneteenth day.

Luckily for me, most of my Juneteenth organization tasks were from when I worked at Stanford University, not quite a city but for sure a big community. The point is millennials and everyone else still not aware of the significance of what the Juneteenth Day Celebration means to African Americans and the descendants of the abolitionist that helped bring about the end of slavery in this country needs to be learned and passed down to the generations that come after us.  One of the reasons we understand what freedom with regard to this nation is, and still celebrate the 4th of July, is because of that battle for independence cut deep into the fabric of America. Just like southerners caught in the north when the Civil War broke out there was Loyalist who felt they were stuck on the wrong side of the War of Independence and the fight to be free of British rule.

The slaves in this country fought not only in America's war for independence, but they fought just as hard in the Civil War to be free, and the day they received that freedom, Juneteenth, was just as important to our slave ancestors as the 4th of July, only much more personal.   So I say if we don't celebrate Juneteenth once a month I'm grateful for the annual Juneteenth celebrations that continue to educate and entertain us all.

American Colonization Society

The American Colonization Society was made up of slave owners and slave merchants with a few well-meaning abolitionists and some free colored people thrown in for good measure. Why the American Colonization Society was founded was to set up a colony on the west coast of Africa and migrate American slaves to Africa. The American Colonization Society significance was that the colony started by the A.C.S. would eventually grow into the nation of Liberia (Liberia the Latin translation means a free place and is the same root for the English word Liberty) so if the Liberian flag looks a little familiar, this post will share that reason.

I believe the slave owners and merchants were trying to deal with the free-slave problem. Just like not all white people were slave owners, not all black people were slaves. The owners and merchants knew that a few free slaves offered to all slaves and that hope is a dangerous emotion to try to contain. To the slave merchants and owners, the slave was a valuable part of their personal wealth and free labor. Slaveholder could imagine what it would be like if too many slaves were allowed to live free, and own weapons.  For those old enough to remember the stories of the tattered and blown nearly apart sailing-ship that limped into New Orleans carrying the remnant survivors of the slave revolt in Haiti the thought of free slaves with weapons was good enough reason to think that the best place for growing numbers of freed slaves was somewhere out of this country. Pulling together the resources to make it happen the A.C.S was born.

A slave could be freed by purchasing their own freedom, or by purchasing the freedom of a family member. The laws in the south were written so that in many places even a free slave had to pick a local master if they wanted to live free in that county. In the northern U.S. a free slave could live as a free man or woman but because of the color of their skin, and unscrupulous slave hunters even northern "free slave" could be kidnapped and sold into slavery. (See the movie 12 years a slave.) Another way a slave could be designated as free was through something called a Deed of Manumission. Most slave owners who had children by slave women did not want their children to live the rest of their life as a slave. So the children fathered by a slave master could be freed from slavery at some agreed-upon age, like 19 or 20.

Free slaves were looked at as a problem to the slaveholder and merchants, so they worked together to figure out how to deal with the issue of free salves and one of their solutions was the American Colonization Society. Many of the well-meaning abolitionists, and free colored people, that joined the slaveholder and merchants did so because they believed African Americans would never be allowed all of the freedoms granted to white people at that time and that meant slave children being denied an educated.

Some abolitionist bought into the fact that living a life of freedom, in another land, away from the racism and unfair laws in America was the best choice for American Africans willing to accept a ticket from the A.C.S. to live free. Even though most of the African Americans emigrating to Africa had never seen Africa before nor could they speak the African language they still made the choice to take the voyage to be able to live free. In many cases that also meant leaving family behind. The A.C.S. acquired ships and loaded with supplies, American families, and news from home began making regular voyages to the new colony on the west coast of Africa.

The A.C.S. opened offices and set up agents in the African colony to help newly arrived Americans learn about the people, places and things Africa was made of and overtime Africans taught the new arrivals to speak the African language, but more often than not, the new arrivals taught the African people how to speak English. A.C.S. ships continued to bring supplies, more people, and news from family members left behind. The news was not good because of talk about the growing threat of a war between the states. The American emigrants in Africa would eventually forge an uneasy connection with the African people in the land of their ancestors.

The Liberian flag well that is a little complicated. (for me anyway) Liberia is actually made up of several different counties and each county has its own flag. However, all of the country flags incorporate the red, white, and blue canton with a white star in the corner. The flag came into existence in 1847, when on July 16 Liberia Declared its Independence from the American basted A.C.S. With their new independence and their new flag, the Liberians used the American constitution as their template and built a society similar to the one in the U.S. that was, unfortunately, eventually accompanied by many of the same prejudices left behind in America.

News of the beginning of the Civil War, the end of the Civil War, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln would also make its way across the ocean to the colony of American living on African soil, along with news from their family members still living in America about a new holiday celebration they named Juneteenth to mark the end of slavery in the southern states.

Two years after the end of the Civil War, slavery had been abolished throughout all of the United States and the A.C.S. had delivered over 13,000 American emigrants to the west coast of Africa and the organization would continue to operate until about 1913. The A.C.S. wasn't the only group that decided to offer colored people living in their country a free ride to Africa. The British had a similar society that performed the same task of offering colored people in England a free cruise to the African west coast, and while I don't have the name of their society comparable to the A.C.S. the colony the British started on the west coast of Africa is today know as Sierra Leone.

When I worked with the Coast Guard back in the 80's I met a Liberian Ship captain whose ship was in Oakland waiting on a load of scrap metal. I remember telling them about someone I had met from their country when I was in college and that they had shared with me information about what they called the Americo Liberians and their feeling of superiority over the indigenous Liberian population due to the Americo Liberian belief in Christianity.

I also shared the fact that in my college days almost all of my American friends had changed their American names to African sounding names, making my friend from Liberia the only one of us with the truly American sounding name, hearing about the American students and their interest in African names made the ship's captain smile, I think she was impressed.