This will be an odd confession to make but I think the first time I heard of “Juneteenth” I assumed it was a fictional date not unlike “Bloomsday” (June 16th, commemoration day of the Irish writer James Joyce). I think I thought this because a portion of Ralph Ellison’s post-humous novel was published with Juneteenth as the title, and I had very little context for the word “Juneteenth” other than the novel title.1
I confess, as far as I can remember, I really hadn’t heard the term until that novel was published (in 1999) and I don’t think I really picked up on the idea that Juneteenth was an actual historical remembrance day until our move to Arkansas. This is my own failure, a failure of self-education, and it’s also a product of the context in which I was raised and lived, which centers the white experience and often suppresses African-American perspectives and history. For example, I also had heard very little of the Tulsa Race Massacre until quite recently. We can all ask ourselves why that is, and I think we know why.
President Biden signed legislation last year that made Juneteenth, which falls on June 19th, a federal holiday. I guess since the state memorial was signed under Mike Huckabee in 2006, we can honestly say in Arkansas that Juneteenth is a bipartisan commemoration.
National interest in Juneteen surged in the summer of 2020 connected to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The final and significant mover making it a national holiday was Opal Lee, an 89 year old African-American activist, who walked from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington D.C. as part of her campaign to make Juneteenth a national holiday. What a prophet!
So what is Juneteenth? Well, it’s the commemoration of the fulfillment of a promise long deferred. On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. That proclamation was effective as soon as it was issued, but like any proclamation, it’s only put in effect if people have heard it or someone delivers it. It’s like that scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou where George Clooney tells Sheriff Cooley, “The Governor done pardoned us. It’s been all over the radio.” And the sheriff replies, “Well, we ain’t got a radio.” Then proceeds with the execution (until a flood intervenes).
The slaves in Texas did not have a radio either, and so although they were officially and legally free as of January 1st, 1863, the actual news of their emancipation did not reach Galveston, Texas until June 19th, 1865, about two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomatox, VA. Each Juneteenth, we are to remember the harsh poignancy of this fact: thousands of slaves were legally free on January 1st, 1863 but were not truly emancipated until June 19th, 1865.
Juneteenth is replete with spiritual insights, not least of which is the way the slaves initially celebrated their newly discovered freedom—through prayer, song, and shared meals. A central focus of Juneteenth commemoration has been the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” time for prayer, and time together with family and friends eating and learning and encouraging. For the African-American community (and the nation), it’s an opportunity to celebrate the freedoms that have been won, and then commit to ensuring the ever-widening scope of such freedom through the over-coming of racist structures and systems.
Christians also have considerable experience with the deferral of promises. Whether it’s the long wilderness wanderings of the Israelites before their arrival in the promised land, or Jesus’ promise to “come again,” we are all intimately familiar with the way in which a promise deferred is both life-giving in having been given, and then a continuing struggle as we wait for its complete fulfillment. In our commitment to anti-racism work, for example, we catch visions of what such freedom might entail, but we also know it is still a long and arduous walk to actual freedom.
As a Christian community today, and specifically as a predominately white Christian community, the gift of this news of freedom in Christ is also a call and responsibility. We have our work cut out for us continuing our commitment to anti-racism. If we simply carry around ideals of multi-culturalism we might actually be functioning kind of like the deferred moment during the Civil War, where emancipation was proclaimed but then not delivered to all those who needed to hear it, those who needed it guaranteed for them.
There is quite a distance between saying, “I don’t see white or black,” and saying, “I will give up some of my privileges and money and make some sacrifices so that my black and brown neighbors can know and trust this space is their space.” The first is unfortunate gesturing at inclusion, while the second is a willingness to make reparations for the sake of the real work of being anti-racist.
We’ve heard through the gospel that we are free in Christ. A basic Lutheran insight is that those who are completely free in Christ are then exactly at the same time bound to their neighbor in their need. It’s the great paradox of the Christian faith. We are free in Christ and just so bound to our neighbor in love. On this Juneteenth we can ask ourselves: how has our having heard that we are free in Christ going to shape how we proclaim continuing emancipation for all, in particular for black lives?
On a side note, if you are the reading type, I highly recommend you pick up and read Ellison’s Invisible Man or the post-humous and unfinished novel Three Days Before the Shooting… Either or both are excellent reads for Juneteenth.
Thank you, Brother Pastor.
We now call the events in Tulsa the Tulsa Race Massacre.