The critical meaning of Juneteenth...

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Today, as I pay homage to my Black ancestors in Texas who learned that the Civil War had ended and that they were free from bondage on this day in 1865, I will remember and lament how their enslavers are still celebrated by many here in America—right up to this very day.

Consider for a moment that in the very year in which President Joe Biden's Department of Defense, led by Secretary Lloyd Austin—a Black man—has changed the name of Fort Bragg, named for Confederate Army General Braxton Bragg, to Fort Liberty, that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, polling a distant second behind Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination for president, has vowed to restore the slavery supporting Bragg's name to a place of prominence in America's military hierarchy if he wins the presidency next year. 

Why? 

The simple reason is that for a great many white Americans, the Civil War was—and remains— “complicated." While the war was waged to settle the issue of slavery expansion into western territories once and for all, Black Union soldiers notwithstanding, it pitted white brother against brother, white cousins against cousins, and white friends against friends from 1861 to 1865.

Confederate Battle Dead near Spottsylvania (Va.) Courthouse circa May 1864…

While nearly 650,000 soldiers on both sides were killed—still a record—within 12 years of the war's end, the Southern slave owners were right back in total control after Reconstruction came to a halt in 1877. By 1890, Civil War reunions had “Billy Yanks” and “Johnny Rebs” eating barbecue, singing songs, and posing for pictures on the very fields that they were locked into mortal combat only a few decades earlier.

Circa 1913, Union and Confederate soldiers shake hands at Gettysburg during the 50th commemoration of that pivotal battle…

Amid the backdrop of Jim Crow laws enacted in the 1880’s that made formerly enslaved Blacks second class citizens well into the 1970's, streets, schools, and forts were then named to "honor" the rebellious Confederates whose sole aim was to keep Black people enslaved in perpetuity!

Such is how the physical and ideological descendants of those slavery supporting rebels, the ones who argue quite foolishly and loudly that whites are the modern victims of discrimination, find champions in men like Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, and countless others who feed their fears while celebrating Confederate men who, in all honesty, could have been lined up and executed as traitors upon the war's end. 

But again, because the Civil War was "complicated" to a great many whites, no such constitutionally mandated executions took place because, as President Abraham Lincoln often reminded his Cabinet, the Southerners were their "Brothers" and should be welcomed back into the Union fold "with malice towards none, and charity for all."

But there were no such “complications” for the enslaved Blacks in Texas who learned that they were free on June 19, 1865—or for other Blacks who learned of their freedom sooner due to their closer proximity to Washington, D.C. 

Those newly freed Black men and women knew the stakes as they set out to reunite with family members that were sold away—all the while building homes, schools, and lives as free people! The newly freed Blacks knew who their enemies were and yet, with an application of Christian grace that would remain largely unrequited, extended love and charity even unto their former enslavers and tormentors from the lynch mob to the Civil Rights eras!

To America's lingering chagrin, when civic leaders claimed to "integrate" public schools during the Civil Rights Movement nearly a century after slavery ended, they did not fully integrate the educational lessons! Such is why I am grateful this morning for my parents and my teachers at FAMU High School who taught us all about Juneteenth, Florida Emancipation Day (May 20th), and had us singing the Negro National Anthem—all the while telling us their first hand experiences with Jim Crow segregation!

I find it disgusting that the GOP can always find a handful of quisling Blacks and Browns to stand as props in their racist photo ops, like this one with Ron DeSantis…

Friends of mine who attended predominantly black elementary, middle, and high schools across the country had similar experiences, but in an era in which DeSantis, Trump, and their ilk wish to suppress teaching “why” the Juneteenth holiday exists, I remind once more that until these lessons become fully blended into all schools, we will continue to have many of our fellow Americans, particularly those of the lighter hue, remain blissfully ignorant and painfully unaware of the people, places, and events that are critical with regards to the good, the bad, and the horrifically bad aspects of the Black experience in America.

Lest we forget...