I’m Emotional about Juneteenth. Aren’t You?

I’ve had to educate myself on Juneteenth. I am a black woman, and I don’t remember my family celebrating Juneteenth when I was growing up. I was an adult before I understood the importance of it. Now that it’s a national holiday, we owe it to each other to understand this part of OUR history. It’s not black history; it’s American history.

By now, I hope you’ve enlightened yourself on the purpose and history of Juneteenth. Information is readily available, and there’s no reason you don’t know except if you have chosen not to learn about it.

I Got Emotional

Often before I write, I gather my thoughts and record them on my phone. I was surprised by the emotion I felt yesterday when recording my thoughts for this blog. I had tears in my eyes, and my voice quivered as I reflected on Juneteenth and its meaning. I was embarrassed that I didn’t know more about Juneteenth and understood the day’s significance. I became emotional about what that day must have meant to people under slavery and those who had enslaved them. It was freedom for some and a new way of living for all. I teared up again at church as they celebrated Juneteenth.

Can You Relate?

Neither you nor I lived in 1865, but our ancestors did. I don’t know what it was like to be “owned” by someone; to be seen as property; to be treated as less than a person; not to be allowed to read; not to be allowed to come and go as I please; not to be allowed to live where I can afford to live; not to be allowed to go as far as my talent would take me and not to be allowed to date and marry the person I love.

I also don’t know what it was like to have a business where the people doing the work were not employees but property that could be bought and sold. And to have those people leave my business because they could and not stay because they had to. But those in our family lines did.

We Are Our History

No one is born without history being passed onto them. Our parents raised us, their parents raised them, and so on. Parents pass down their values, and beliefs, and we have experiences. Institutions are built and maintained. Slavery wasn’t that many generations ago. I can see its influence in the era of my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents – what they did, what they didn’t do, what they did to stay safe, how they broke through barriers put up to keep them out or to keep them in, how they assimilated in a way that was acceptable to those in power and despite opposition, how they fiercely worked to build a better life for their children.

Acknowledging our full history and all of its warts is a sign of maturity. These are the decisions and experiences of those that came before us. It happened. It was real. Their history is our history, whether we relate to it or not.

Juneteenth is a day worthy of celebration for our country. It marked the actual end of an era of people ownership that never should have happened. Should I feel emotional about it, yes, don’t you?

Worth a Read: Juneteenth’s Vision of Freedom Expresses American Values Better than the Fourth of July’s