The Importance of Juneteenth
According to a quick Google Trends search, interest in Juneteenth increased by 400% between 2019 and 2020. This fact is unsurprising, considering the rise in awareness of race and racism that came with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many, many others. In efforts to counter the weight of all the anti-blackness we faced in the midst of a viral pandemic, some people, both Black and white, looked for more reasons to smile, to celebrate. And while I love that attention to this holiday is increasing, I’m nervous about what might get lost along the way. My perspective on the significance of Juneteenth and how to observe it today is influenced by my research as a scholar of 19th-century African American literature and history, my love of dogs (I’ll get to that later), and my general skepticism about the commercialization of cultures. But first— a history:
Juneteenth is a portmanteau of the words “June” and “nineteenth,” the precise date on which the Union made its way down to Galveston, Texas to inform the enslaved Black people that President Abraham Lincoln had proclaimed them free. You see, one of the many underhanded tactics used by white enslavers to delay the dissolution of slavery was withholding the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation from the people they enslaved. Some waited until the end of the harvest season; some waited until the Union came and told everyone for themselves. In any case, the day that Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863 was not the day that every Black person in the U.S. gained their freedom (and technically, neither was June 19th, 1865). Texas was considered the last state to part with the institution of slavery, and so, in 1866, Black Texans commemorated the day that the United States promised to be and remain the land of the free.
Unfortunately, that promise is yet unfulfilled. When I look out of my window, I don’t see a land that equally affords freedom to everyone who inhabits it. And I mean that literally— my window looks out onto a police station. At night, the displays of red and blue lights come crashing through the glass, painting me in a stark reminder of how easily the freedoms I enjoy right now could vanish. Black freedom in the country is a tenuous thing. I say this from a position of privilege as a Ph.D. candidate living in a luxury apartment building in the middle of Chinatown in Philadelphia. Still, as we’ve seen time and time again, class signifiers and education are never enough to guarantee our safety.
This Juneteenth, I’ll be spending my time thinking about how I can use the privileges I have access to to get us more free by next Juneteenth. I’m working on a syllabus for a class I call “Reform, Defund, Abolish.” I’ll be regularly putting money toward mutual aid. I’ll be using my platform to encourage ongoing conversations about difficult subjects that affect me and the people I care about— queer folks, trans folks, disabled folks, folks in Palestine and Tigray, incarcerated folks, and as always, Black folks everywhere.
“Why have I never heard of Juneteenth?”
The battle against critical race theory (or rather, what people who have never read any critical race theory are calling “critical race theory”) is all over the news right now as several states work to keep children ignorant by pretending racism never existed. Florida is the latest in a slew of states sanitizing American history by removing any trace of U.S. racism from school curricula. Before this recent wave of uproar about “critical race theory,” which is actually a legal studies term explaining how racism shows up in U.S. policy, there have always been widespread efforts to keep the subject of racism out of schools. White parents rushed to shelter their children from learning about the tragedy of racism but dragged their feet when it came to protecting Black children from experiencing it. That’s one reason you may not have been taught about Juneteenth in school.
Another reason is that Juneteenth is a particularly regional holiday. Because of its origins, it used to be a day for Black Texans to remember the history of their ancestors and their state. As time went by, African Americans at large began to celebrate the day that the Union notified the last of the enslaved people in Texas of their freedom, essentially rendering all Black people in the United States free— although today we know that not to be true.
Considering how seriously this country takes freedom (I’m looking at you, Fourth of July), Juneteenth should be a significant milestone in U.S. history. It’s strange how loudly nationalists boast the “Land of the Free” while remaining silent on the day that allegedly made that statement true. I say “allegedly” because with mass incarceration, wealth inequality, and the persistent remnants of slavery that show up in policing, housing, voting, and elsewhere, I’m hardly convinced that Black Americans enjoy the same freedom as everyone else. However, as someone who enjoys a good barbecue, I’m all for holidays that recognize the most important moments in our history as long as we recognize that the project of Black freedom is ongoing. Juneteenth is an excellent time to stop and reflect on the progress we’ve made and plan for the progress we still wish to see.
Just 156 years ago, this country experienced a rather significant shift, one that deserves to be remembered even though its impact was not as big as other major shifts like the Civil Rights acts. June 19th, 1865 changed lives, and freedom on any scale merits celebration.
“But wait, what do dogs have to do with slavery?”
Ok, I’ve kept you waiting long enough. What does my dog have to do with my Juneteenth plans? Well in my article about police dogs, I mentioned the existence of “Negro dogs,” or dogs specifically trained to track and control Black people. I know of at least one dog breed that no longer exists because its only function in the Americas and England was “catching fugitives,” aka punishing Black and Indigenous people who dared to pursue the freedom that was denied to them. In the United States specifically, abolitionists used stories of Black people being hunted and mauled by “slave hounds,” as they were oh-so-affectionately known, as evidence of the cruel and gruesome nature of white supremacy and the role that dogs played in it. “Slave catchers” who were hired to chase down enslavers’ property were often accompanied by scent-tracking dogs. U.S. military forces used dogs to terrorize and commit genocide against Indigenous and Black people, incentivizing the hounds to hunger for human flesh and going so far as to memorialize these attacks in artwork. These dogs were vicious, because white supremacy instructed them to be.
While some enslaved people had to learn tactics to avoid or escape the jaws of enslavers’ best friends, others (who were allowed by the law) kept their own dogs as companions and hunting buddies that made life a little bit easier to live. They helped bring in food, and sometimes income. They gave some enslaved people a small taste of the power and autonomy wielded against them every day. In some cases, these dogs aided in their escapes to freedom by catching food and scaring away those who chased them. Given that some states imposed legislation that forbade the enslaved from keeping a dog of their own, the Emancipation Proclamation and subsequently Juneteenth marked a shift in human-dog relationships for African Americans. All of this means that my dog, Ginger, is a little milestone for me, a rite of passage that allows me to step a little further into autonomy. Our bond is a revolutionary act I will celebrate on Juneteenth and every day that comes after it.
How to Celebrate Juneteenth: A Guide for Allies
Now that the Senate has passed a bill making Juneteenth a national holiday, I worry about the imminent array of reinvented brand logos in various shades of brown and empty gestures written on discount store t-shirts across America (a la Pride). This sudden widespread awareness of Juneteenth can be dangerous if we view it as only a memorialization instead of a reminder: there is still so much more work to do. To me, Juneteenth is not about looking backward, but rather about taking a close, hard look at our present reality and making it better.
To Black folks, how you celebrate Juneteenth (if you celebrate) is entirely up to you. Please don’t feel pressured to perform for this newfound audience, a pressure I often feel myself. But if you do want to mark the occasion, I wish you a very happy holiday! Any opportunity to come together and reflect on how far we’ve come is worth taking.
To non-Black folks, you don’t have to wait for an invitation to the cookout to show up and show out for us. Now that Juneteenth is a federal holiday, I anticipate that a lot more non-Black people will be joining in on the festivities. And while I don’t think “celebrating” Juneteenth is the most appropriate term for non-Black engagement, there are ways to mark the holiday that actually benefit Black folks. Instead of giving your money to the big name brands that I’m sure will be plastering Black power fists all over their merch, consider patronizing a Black-owned business (like the ones in this spreadsheet I’ve been compiling) that uplifts Black people year-round (Lenox Ave Company, Scipaws, The Doggish Life, and Migo & Company come to mind). Do some reading on current legislation that disproportionately affects Black folks, and keep those conversations alive among your peers. Participate in mutual aid by donating money directly to Black folks asking for help, online and in the real world. In my opinion, the single most important thing we can do to honor the Black people that created this holiday is commit ourselves to continuing the fight for racial equality here and abroad. The work continues. Happy Juneteenth.
Recommended Reading
Boisseron, Bénédicte. Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question. Columbia University Press, 2018.
Giltner, Scott. “Slave Hunting and Fishing in the Antebellum South.” To Love the Wind and the Rain : African Americans and Environmental History, edited by Dianne D. Glave, and Mark Stoll, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005.
Johnson, Sara E. ""You should Give them Blacks to Eat:" Waging Inter-American Wars of Torture and Terror." American Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 1, 2009, pp. 65-92.
Parry, Tyler D., and Charlton W. Yingling. "Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas." Past & Present, vol. 246, no. 1, 2020, pp. 69-108.
