by Ellen Shubart, Class of 2006
Our newest national holiday, Juneteenth, is not well known or understood, despite being observed as Emancipation Day as early as 1866. The CAC community can learn about this special day and the events it commemorates in a memoir by noted historian Annette Gordon-Reed. Titled On Juneteenth, the short (141 pages) but powerful collection of essays recounts the history of Juneteenth. It also recounts the writer’s experience of how the history of slavery and emancipation are taught in Texas, where Juneteenth took place on June 19,1865.
When Gordon-Reed was taught Texas history, she learned that the Civil War was not about slavery, but rather about states’ rights. “When slavery in Texas was mentioned, it was presented as an unfortunate event that was to be acknowledged but quickly passed over. There was no sense of the institution’s centrality,” she writes. The nuances of how the state dealt with slavery were perhaps not even understood by the teachers in those classrooms.
The author was the token Black student in the white high school she attended in her small Texas town, encouraged by her parents, who wanted her to have a better education. She recounts humiliating experiences during her school years.
Gordon-Reed notes that much of the complex story of Africans on American soil has been ignored, while schools focus solely on interactions of Africans with English-speaking white people. Even the history of Texas’ cherished Alamo has been whitewashed, erasing the fact that two enslaved persons were present there. The author reveals that “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” the famous Texas anthem, is referring to an attractive mixed race woman present at the Alamo who is said to have distracted General Santa Ana, not to the flower one imagines.
Although President Lincoln abolished slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, It wasn’t until the Union Army arrived in Texas to report the end of the Civil War that enslaved people were informed they were free. When General Order 3 was read, former slaves celebrated by cheering for their emancipation. They were whipped by their former owners for doing so.
“Whites unleashed a torrent of violence against the freed men and women – and sometimes, the whites who supported them – that lasted for years,” Gorden-Reed writes.
On Juneteenth is a book worth reading as we ponder the meaning of Juneteenth, proclaimed a national holiday in 2022.
_________________________________________________________________________________
CLICK HERE for more stories on The Bridge.