The Word for the True Recognition of Individual Freedoms: We must fight to keep them
Myra Jolivet, SMPS
President Biden signed Juneteenth into law making it a federal holiday. The “back story” of this celebration, serves as a poignant reminder of how fragile freedom can be, especially at a time when personal liberties are being challenged in Texas and other red states.
Galveston, Texas, June 19 of 1865, General Gordon Granger led the Union occupation force delivering the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to enslaved people in the region. Texas lawmakers had refused to accept the 1863 antislavery law.
The slave trade represented one of the largest forced migrations in human history. During the 400-year period, 12.5 million men women and children were kidnapped, sold, and held in forced labor camps (AKA plantations). Stories of murder, rape, and horrid living conditions---the loss of freedom---are unconscionable.
Enslaved from birth in 1813 North Carolina, Harriet Jacobs was taught to read and write by her enslaver but when he died, she was subjected to the brutality and sexual advances of his family member. She hid in an attic for seven years until she was smuggled to the north. She wrote, Incidents in the Live of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself."
Olaudah Equiano was 11 years old when he was captured in Nigeria. Later, he wrote about his childhood in West Africa and the horrors endured by enslaved people in America. His accounts were used by British reformers who eventually succeeded in ending it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interesting_Narrative_of_the_Life_of_Olaudah_Equiano
I first heard the word Juneteenth while working as a TV news reporter in Texas. I interviewed late State Representative Al Edwards who had sponsored and authored a bill, setting the foundation for a state holiday using the name which combined the month and date of Texas emancipation. As a California native, I wondered about the rationale for celebrating two additional years in captivity.
And then I woke up…
Frederick Douglass, former enslaved author, activist, and abolitionist said, “…Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
Enslavement can be insidious and manifest in many forms. It is defined as the act of controlling someone's actions, thoughts, emotions, or life completely.
Extremist Republican governors are today aggressively criminalizing significant aspects of freedom:
· A woman’s right to legally make her own reproductive and health choices, and to penalize health professionals who support her.
· Aggressive banning of books and threatening librarians and teachers with arrest.
· The sabotage of voting rights in Democratic districts and areas where marginalized people live and vote.
These are acts of enslavement.
158 years ago, enslaved people were emancipated in theory, but laws didn’t fully protect them from the undermining of their freedoms. Juneteenth is a wake-up call for all of us. The fight to protect our personal freedoms, continues….
Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery. ~Wayne Dyer
