Episode 101: The History and Significance of Juneteenth

Dr. Almitra Berry discusses the history of Juneteenth and its ongoing significance in America. She explains why news of emancipation was delayed in reaching enslaved people in Texas and highlights ongoing resistance to full emancipation. Dr. Berry also explores the complex history of slavery in other western states and its impact today. Listeners learn about the importance of understanding "hard history" and celebrating Juneteenth to continue advancing racial justice and equality.

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Transcript

3E Podcast - Episode 101

Wed, Jun 26, 2024 3:31PM • 29:07

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

juneteenth, history, texas, enslaved, emancipation, slavery, state, california, hard, emancipation proclamation, black, years, support, schools, people, slaveholders, present, 14th amendment, union, talk

SPEAKERS

Dr Almitra Berry

00:03

If you're a parent, teacher or school leader and you're sick and tired of the frustration, anger and unfair treatment of children at high risk in our public schools, then perhaps it's time for all of us to do something about it. In this podcast, Dr amitra Berry brings you tips, tools, strategies and tactics to build successful solutions while touching, moving and inspiring all of us to transform our schools so that every child thrives. Here's your host. Dr Berry,

Dr Almitra Berry  00:42

welcome back equity warriors. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The 3e podcast. Thanks for joining me and thanks for staying with me. Let's talk Juneteenth. Shall we? I originally wanted to call this episode a journey from emancipation to modern relevance, but if you listen to the last episode, you'll know I said that life got in the way a little bit more transparency. Was actually death that got in the way and pulled me away from my daily work. But I am back, and I know it's a little late to talk about Juneteenth, but yeah, frankly, if we're talking about Juneteenth, 250,000 enslaved black people in Texas were two years late getting the news. So for me, maybe a week or so behind schedule isn't quite so bad, forgive me, I first talked about Juneteenth back in episode five, a long, long time ago, or I didn't talk about Juneteenth, excuse me, I talked about hard history, and I want to talk about here today very quickly to get us set up and the right mindset or framework to talk about Juneteenth. Let's understand what hard history is, either as a primer for those of you who are just joining, for those of you who have not listened to Episode Five for 95 episodes, there's not a lot of content in between, and just so that we all are on the same page about what is hard history, because we're hearing that term quite a bit, but it's not always being defined. So here's the definition, my definition of hard history. Hard history refers to challenging and uncomfortable aspects of our past that are central to understanding this nation's development and its present day realities. Hard history includes events and periods of time that often involve collective violence, state sanctioned oppression, or actions that contradict our stated, so called national values, hard histories are often dissonant with popular narratives. It doesn't quite does doesn't quite make sense. It connects to current societal issues, and it requires us to confront head on, some difficult truths about our past and our present. That's a long definition, I know, so let's break it down a an audio close read of what that is, hard history. Five Elements. Number one, hard history is central to understanding and coming to reckon with our national history. Hard history is a part of the national history. Second element, hard history will often contradict what is commonly accepted as the narrative or his story. It will also contradict our stated values as a nation, like all men are created equal. Third element, hard history, often, or almost always, involves some violence or oppression, oppression of marginalized peoples number four, it's always going to connect to an issue in the present day, last but not least. Number five, hard history challenges our existing understandings of history. History, those of you know me know that I used teach history. It was my favorite subject when I was in elementary school. I love teaching high school US history. And back in episode five, I quoted Mark Twain. I know Mark Twain stay with me, but he wrote the very ink which with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice. He had some great insights from time to time. So let's talk about Juneteenth. Origins of Juneteenth are in the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln back on January 1, 1863 1863 Right, but there were a number of things that were wrong with that proclamation, wrong with emancipation, the way it was laid out, and that the things that were really wrong were particularly true in Confederate controlled areas. And I'm going to talk about what was going on outside of the south and outside of those Confederate states, but Juneteenth, essentially, was the announcement that the enslaved Africans. By then, you know the numbers of years we've been here, African Americans. And you all know that I prefer to use the term black for those of us who have that shared history of ancestors who were enslaved. Black Americans were supposedly free, at least no longer enslaved. Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865, General Order Number three is what it was called, Union General Gordon Granger got down to Galveston and announced, proclaimed that all enslaved people were free now for the 250,000 people in Texas who were still enslaved. This is two years plus after the Emancipation Proclamation. When did I say? I know I hate to do dates in history, but this is important. January 118, 63 was the proclamation. We got the news in Texas on June 19, 1865 two and a half years later. So why the delay? Well, they've said a number of things as to why it took so long. I was in a having a conversation last week, and somebody said, Well, you know, it's not like they could get on Twitter or x or whatever you want to call it and just announce it. No, but they had and though they didn't have telephones, but they had telegraph, they had the telegraph. So I want you to keep in mind there was a way to communicate nationally without somebody having to ride a horse from DC to Galveston to share the news. So yes, Texas was, at that time, geographically remote from the main fighting of the Civil War. So it's not like Union forces were sitting in Texas and got the word via telegraph and went out and said something. The other thing is, Texas is a pretty big state, second only to Alaska. Shout out to anybody in Alaska, yes, I know you guys are huge. Texas looks like an ant in the state of Alaska, but it was pretty good size. There was limited infrastructure. There was limited transportation. They'd have the rail lines that you see along the eastern seaboard. So yeah, horseback was how we got here. The Emancipation itself. One of the big issues was that it only applied to Confederate states that were in active rebellion, only those states that had declared their independence from the United States. So enforcing that really did depend. Enforcing the Emancipation depended on there being the Union United States, American Union military forces. Now, Texas was a Confederate state, but it wasn't under Union control until the end, after the Civil War was over and it was there was a lot of work still to be done by the Union army to enforce the proclamation I'll say here in Texas that, you know, because that's where I am not back then. I ain't that old. So even though Lee surrendered, you know, they always like talk about, it's our, the, the, their, their, what do they say? Their, their culture? Yeah, and they want to keep swinging those or waving those stars and bars flags. They surrendered. They quit. They gave up. But it took time to get to areas outside of where all that fighting was going on. And you had slaveholders in Texas who, of course, didn't want to give up their free labor. And so even when they had the news, they didn't tell their enslaved people. There were, there were slave holders who even moved to Texas from other states to get out of the area that was under control of Union forces so they could keep practicing slavery. A little bit of defiance there, until they could get everything under control. So there were also, you know, some logistical efforts again. Keep in mind, it wasn't present day. We're doing everything on horseback. Took a little while. So you got isolation, you've got a need for military control. You've got resistance from white slave holders and just getting enough people in in this case we're talking right now Texas, because that's what Juneteenth is all about, to get this taken care of. Now, real hard history. There were, you know, aside from, yeah, you had slaveholders who were moving their slaves to Texas. Try and stay ahead of the curve, so to speak. But one of the simple truths is that they wanted to get another harvest out of the slaves before the slaves were freed. That's a huge economic motivation. And as you think about how things are connected to present day, keep that in mind. There's a lot of things that we aren't told, that our children aren't taught, because there is motivation for people in power to have an underclass of citizenry that will do menial labor. They want an uneducated underclass to do the work that previously was done by enslaved Africans. So all of those things going on now, it wasn't just Texas. Texas wasn't the only state that ignored the Emancipation Proclamation. You dig deeper into American history, you find out that states like Kentucky, Kentucky was a border state, and because it was a border state, it was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation. Kentucky didn't ratify the 13th Amendment, which freed the slaves. Until Are you ready for this? 1976 1920 1976 so slavery was legal in Kentucky until you had the ratification in 1865 but Kentucky didn't ratify it until 111 years later, 111 years Delaware. Delaware rejected the 13th and the 13th Amendment. They didn't ratify it until 1901 still ahead of Kentucky. But a full 30, if I do my math right, 3634 somebody will tell me, 34 years later, 36 years later, Mississippi, any surprise there? Mississippi was a little slow to implement the emancipation. It was the last state to ratify the 13th Amendment. It did so officially. Drum roll, please. Are you ready for this in 1995 and so it wasn't certified until 2013 because of some administrative oversight that needed to take place. So Mississippi, let's just call it 2013 2013 there's some other Confederate states that resisted through a variety of means. Georgia, of course, they wanted to keep their old system. They only, only emancipated their slaves because of a threat of military force. And so Juneteenth, June 19, Weeze was free, but not really because resistance to emancipation continued, we had black codes that restricted the rights of African Americans who were free. There were systems of sharecropping that resulted in what they called debt peonage. You were forever in debt. You could never get out. My grandparents and great grandparents were sharecroppers. They created a system to maintain black bodies in a form of slavery based on debt, just so that they could try and make a living. There were vagrancy laws that created forced labor chain gains. If you were not working, not employed, or just supposedly standing around, you could be arrested and forced into a labor camp or chain gang. The images that come to mind of what that looks like in southern states is always disturbing. And there were, there were apprenticeship, apprenticeship systems that were created basically to exploit black children. And this wasn't just Mississippi or Alabama or Texas. This was across the former Confederacy and even some of the board border states, we saw a resistance to full emancipation well beyond the Civil War, through reconstruction into the 20th century, with Jim Crow laws and all of the other forms of systemic racism that we see now, we still don't have equal rights, although theoretically all men are created equal. So we talk about that hard history and the the the the dissonance between our stated values as a country, what it what we. Supposedly say we believe in and what is the truth that is hard history, and Juneteenth is a prime example. Now, you also know, I'm originally from California, born and raised there, and before you folks in California and the other western states start thinking you are so much better than all of that, here's a little bit more. So yeah, California, when they joined the Union, they joined as a free state in 1850 but, but California, their constitution did prohibit slavery, but they were a society with slaves, so you had southern slaveholders who brought their enslaved people with them because of the gold rush in California, and a system in California that prohibited, essentially prohibited, black people from working the Gold Rush unless they were essentially enslaved by white People in 1852, two years after California entered the union, they passed their own fugitive slave law, and their Fugitive Slave Act allowed for escaped enslaved people in California to be returned to their owners. So they were complicit. And you it, there's a that that history that is complex and and it wasn't good. We'll keep it simple. And they didn't stop there. In California, it wasn't just black folks that were enslaved. Native Americans were subjected to forced labor. There was an act in California, along California called the act for government and protection of Indians, passed in 1850 so Native American children and adults could be indentured to white people, essentially enslaved. Now the black community in California, they were actively fighting against slavery and for civil rights. They had conventions, they published newspapers, they advocated for the repeal of discriminatory laws, but still it existed. Oregon. Y'all ain't off the hook either. Oregon explicitly prohibited slavery when they adopted their state constitution, but they also included exclusion laws that barred black people from living in the state black people were barred from living in the state of Oregon until the 1920s and New Mexico territory, which is the our present day, Arizona, New Mexico, they allowed slavery under The compromise of 1850 and it, no, it wasn't widespread, but the status was kind of ambiguous until the end of the Civil War. So Arizona, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington. You may be off the hook, but, you know, I haven't dug deep enough, perhaps to make sure. So maybe it wasn't as entrenched as slavery in the southern states, but the Western States still engaged in some practices that undermined freedom and rights for black people and native people and other marginalized groups. Those practices continued to affect communities of color in the West. Add into that Chinese, Filipino and Japanese populations, large populations in California. And this is why we need to celebrate Juneteenth. I'm not done. Celebrate Juneteenth and why? Other groups who have benefited need to recognize how they have benefited from this work. Okay? After that, we've got after emancipation. There's a period called reconstruction, right? So that went on to about 1877 reconstruction, this idea to reunify families, to get schools started for black folks to be able to participate in politics, was huge. We had black people being elected to the US Congress during Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed. So the 13th of mentioned already abolished slavery. Slavery. Those 1865 three years later. So I love this one. The 14th amendment gave us, theoretically, citizenship and equal protection under the law to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. So. We were free in 1865 but we were not citizens until 1868 three years later, the question of equal protection is still a question when you look at the way marginalized people, and particularly black people in this country, are treated still today and then in 1872 years later, the 15th Amendment prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color or previous condition of servitude. But if you know a little bit of your history, you know there are things like literacy test and poll taxes, and if you look at the present day actions taken in states like Georgia, in states like Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, across the south, where they are trying to prohibit voting or restrict voting, as soon as they say they're going to reduce the amount of early voting, no Saturday voting, no Sunday voting, reduce the number of hours on Election Day. Have fewer drop boxes in neighborhoods of color. When you consider the present day actions that are taking place, it is just another form of denying the right to vote based on race or color. So Juneteenth. I have a T shirt that says Juneteenth, 1865 because my ancestors were not free in 1776 when America declared its independence from Great Britain. What's the difference between the two? We have the Fourth of July. It's coming up the birth United States, 1776 but that applied only to white men who owned land when it came to having those equal rights, it didn't include women, it didn't include Native Americans, it didn't include black Americans, and it didn't include poor white people who didn't have any land. Freedom was not extended to all people on July 4, 1776, and yet people question why we want to celebrate Juneteenth. It wasn't until 2021 that Juneteenth was made a federal holiday. Thank you, Joe Biden, and becoming more and more popular across the United States now, because it is a federal holiday now living in Texas and not very far from Galveston, it is a huge event in Galveston, and it should be and constantly remembered and recognized. Black folks have, not just in Texas, but more and more everywhere. Now, parades. We have Juneteenth parades. Y'all know we gotta have some music and we gotta have food, but if you see potato salad with raisins, step back educational events, it's very important for us to educate our children, and for us to extend that education, not just to black children, but to all children. We need to educate all adults about what Juneteenth is and what it means to everyone in terms of rights for marginalized people, because there's a lot of groups that are coat tailing in to get rights based on what black people have gone through in this country, it is a symbol of resilience. Juneteenth symbolizes our fight, our ongoing fight for racial justice, and we need to use it and leverage it to continue to raise awareness about systemic racism, not just systemic racism in education, but more broadly so. How are other people benefiting? Well, think about that 14th Amendment and the extension of civil rights protections that includes, or that's when women became protected, immigrants became a became protected, LGBTQ plus individuals now have protections under the 14th Amendment. Is the 14th Amendment that supported the desegregation of schools in Brown versus Board of Education. But we're not fixed yet. We ain't right yet. Think about the challenges that are currently faced by black Americans and other marginalized groups in this country. Think about the challenges faced by children of color and children of linguistic diversity in all our schools. It is important for all of you as equity warriors to be educated and to be. The allies, true allies, anti racist and activist to continue a fight for equality and justice, I want to thank you for allowing me an opportunity to talk more broadly about Juneteenth, not in a silly way. I love some of the great the great comics who have some really good content about Juneteenth. I want you to be truly educated. I want you to understand the history and the significance of Juneteenth. And I want you to understand that hard history is hard for a reason, and if we don't understand those five elements of hard history that we don't see it when it's right in front of us. So become informed and aware and when we reflect on the past and how it impacts our presence our present, we have to continue to have conversation and take action. Here's what you need to do, three things. Don't just educate yourself, educate others. Share this episode with your friends, with your family. Spread awareness about Juneteenth, about hard history and why it's important to understand hard history, support black owned businesses. Make a conscious effort to support black entrepreneurs and businesses in your community, not just businesses like mine, but restaurants, stores, dry cleaners, businesses online, because we may never get reparations, so we're going to have to support one another if we're ever going to have a large black community that can build generational wealth. And number three, advocate for change. I say it all the time. Get involved. Understand local and national politics. Work and support those organizations that are working towards racial justice and equality, broadly and specifically in our schools, because understanding hard history is just a first step towards creating equity. Visit my Patreon channel for more resources and join me again next week and every week. Connect with me on social. Look down in the notes for links, in your questions, topics and requests to info@askdoctorbury.com and y'all know, I'll answer those questions and bring you some experts to help address those topics. As always, don't worry about the things you cannot change. Change the things you can no longer accept. I'll check you next week, and that's a wrap for this week's episode of the 3e podcasts. You know, every time you tune in, you're joining a powerful movement to reshape education. So now let's take that impact to the next level. Here's how you can make a difference. First, if you haven't already done so, smash that subscribe button. It's free, it's easy, and it matters more than you know. Second, if today's discussion resonated with you. Share it. Don't get the good stuff to yourself. Spread the word to your friends, your family, your colleagues, anyone who cares about education. And third, now this is the big one. Consider becoming a supporter of the 3e podcast. Your small monthly contribution. It is the catalyst for our mission. With your support, we can amplify these crucial conversations, we can reach more educators around the world and produce more of the content you love together. We're not just talking about change. We are making it happen. So here's what I'm asking. Head over to Buzzsprout and subscribe to the educational equity emancipation podcast. Every download there and only downloads there. Directly support our work. Don't just be a listener. Be a change maker. Be an equity warrior. You have the power to change the things we can no longer accept. Join our community. Support the 3e podcast today. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you on the next episode. You