Excavating the meaning behind Juneteenth

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. It is the date we honor during Juneteenth in Joliet.

Often forbidden on public land, violence toward the formerly enslaved forced many to gather in remote rural areas in order to commemorate the day. In 1872, Black Houstonians pooled their resources to purchase a 10-acre lot christened Emancipation Park. The site was used to host a Juneteenth gathering called the Colored People’s Festival.

The backdrop for Juneteenth resulted from the divided mindset of a severely divided country. America’s Confederate states were incensed when President Abraham Lincoln dared draft the Executive Order that freed the slaves. Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation Sept. 22, 1862. However, it didn’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 1863. As word spread, the order motivated 200,000 formerly enslaved Blacks to enlist in the Union army to fight for freedom.

Fear due to further loss of human capital created a backlash in the South. Slave owners in Mississippi and Louisiana moved swiftly, forwarding human cargo to the welcoming arms of East Texas plantations. The intention was to push Black Americans deeper into slavery beyond the Union Army’s reach. Historians estimate 150,000 illegally enslaved Blacks were sent westward, forced into continued servitude.

Put yourself in the shoes of a Black person living in Texas circa 1863. While slaving away on the master’s farm, you likely heard about Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Imagine the frustration of the nullification of your freedom simply because you lack representation and by extension the power to change the status quo of local life.

Abraham Sells who remained enslaved against his will deep in the heart of East Texas described this longing in his slave narrative, “I’member how some… the oldes’ (slaves) was settin’ round the fire late in the night, stirrin’ the ashes with the poker and rakin’ out the roas’ ‘taters. They’s smokin’ the old corn cob pipe and homemade tobacco and whisperin’ right low and quiet like what they’s gwinter do and whar they’s gwinter go when Mister Lincoln, he turn them free.”

Imagine the brutal back lash to your entire family should you decide to exercise your right to freedom by taking your case to court. Imagine being trapped like a wounded animal in a vice built by people who benefit from your loss.

Regrettably, deliverance from this incarnation of evil reached Black Americans almost three years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all enslaved people.

Urban legend has it that the phrase “don’t shoot the messenger,” stemmed from reports of mail carriers being shot on site for attempting to deliver the news of emancipation. It required a federal edict and a garrison of Black soldiers to finally enforce the law of the land on this historic date: June 19, 1865.

For the record, the Civil War resulted from economic and political shifts in power. This inconvenient truth was the truest source of the rift between northern and southern states. It would be pure folly to assume that the Civil War was predicated on the freedom of slaves.

Biographical depictions of Lincoln have proven slavery was leveraged to break the back of the South. In fact, in the summer of 1862, Lincoln penned a rebuttal to an editorial written by Horace Greely, editor of the New York Tribune, criticizing the president for not going far enough. Lincoln’s response will be covered in the next installment of this column.

• Toni Greathouse leads Juneteenth in Joliet. is an “Entrepreneurial Evangelist” whose purpose is spelled out in the letters of her first name - serving as a reminder to Take On Neighborhood Interaction & Try Out Novel Ideas.