We’ve come far since the first Juneteenth. But we still have a long way to go | Opinion

Back in the early 1970s, when I was a rookie reporter at the Herald, I believed it was my duty as a journalist to tell the story of my people. I wanted white Americans to see the truth about us — what we had endured and what it took to get us to where we are.

One of the stories I wanted to tell was that of Juneteenth. It was on June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, that Union soldiers rode through Galveston, Texas, with the message that the Civil War had ended and that all enslaved people were free.

The fact that the slaves in Texas did not know they were free for two and a half years was a horribly cruel joke, played on a people that had been enslaved in this country for more than 300 years.

When I tried to sell my Juneteenth story to the city editor, hardly anyone, outside of the African-American community, even knew what Juneteenth was. I felt it was my duty to let others know the significance of the day and what it meant to African Americans.

So confident the city editor would think Juneteenth was a great story idea, I presented my story to him. To my disappointment, he barely looked at what I had written and rejected it with the wave of his hand and the words, “Nobody would be interested in that,” he said. He handed my story back to me without even looking at me. I was crushed.

“They don’t want to know us,” I thought as I walked back to my desk near the back of the newsroom. Still, we Blacks knew the significance of the day and Juneteenth celebrations started popping up in many states, including in South Florida.

I kept the story in a file in my desk drawer for years, until I retired. Over the years, unbeknownst to me, a woman named Opal Lee had decided that it was high time for Juneteenth to be recognized and even to become a national holiday.

Lee, often referred to as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” was 89 in 2016 when she walked from Fort Worth to Washington for the cause of making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Although she didn’t walk the entire 1,400 miles, Lee walked a significant portion of the journey and gathered over 1.5 million signatures along the way.

This grand gesture brought national attention to Lee’s fight to bring recognition to Juneteenth. On June 17, 2021, her hard work paid off, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, making June 19 a federal holiday.

In the aftermath of celebrating one of our nation’s newest federal holidays, my mind wanders back to the days when the slaves in Galveston first learned they were free.

As the great-great-granddaughter of slaves, I can only imagine the looks of disbelief and shock that must have registered on the faces of the slaves who first heard the news from the Union soldiers. Not only was the Civil War over, but they were free.

In my mind, I can see the jubilation, the dancing, and the joyful singing that must have taken place. In their jubilation, the newly freed slaves dubbed the day, “Juneteenth.”

When the news of their freedom had really sunk in, the reality must have hit them real hard: “So, we are free. Now what?”

What came after that first Juneteenth was often just as bad, or worse, for the freed slaves than when they were enslaved. It seemed that for many slaves, especially those in the Deep South, freedom was something written on paper that many of them couldn’t even read.

Even after they learned they were free, the former slaves were not prepared for what was to happen next. Although with God-given skills, many of the former slaves were uneducated and stayed with their former owners. Others had the audacity to leave the plantations that had been home to them for generations.

They left the plantations where the beatings, the rapes of their young daughters and even their wives had taken place, where lynching was often the price they paid for trying to run away. And, so, many freed Blacks headed north, where they had heard things were better for freed men and women.

While getting adjusted to their freedom was not easy, the freed men and women persevered. They started schools in makeshift wooden shacks. They started businesses — women took in laundry and hired other women to work for them. Others used their skills in the kitchen to start tiny restaurants. Some women became known for their skill at designing and sewing beautiful garments for the white women in their communities.

One woman, Sarah Goode, became the first Black woman to receive a U.S. patent for her invention of the folding cabinet bed. Born in 1850, she moved to Chicago after the Civil War and opened a furniture store. Her invention served as a desk by day and a bed at night.

Early freed Black men became blacksmiths and farmers and used their skills to invent such things as the corn planter, the cotton-cleaning machine, the broom-making machine, and in 1853, the potato chip.

And for a period of about 12 years — from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until 1877— life for the newly freed Negro became bearable. It was called the Reconstruction Era and was a time when freed Blacks experienced a period of political and social advancement.

It was a time when Hiram Revels, born free and a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was elected to the U.S. Senate from Mississippi, the first Black U.S. senator.

At that time, state legislatures elected U.S. senators. In 1870, Mississippi legislators voted 81 to 15 to elect Revels to the Senate to finish the term of one of the state’s two U.S Senate seats, which had been left vacant since the Civil War.

A few years later, in 1874, Mississippi legislators elected Blanche K. Bruce, born into slavery, to the U.S. Senate. He was the first African American to serve a full term in the Senate and the first to preside over the Senate in 1879.

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution — ratified between 1865 and 1870 — were also critical in moving the country forward after the Civil War. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States,” including former slaves and provided equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment granted voting rights regardless of race.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was also a landmark law, determining that all persons born in the United States were citizens, regardless of race, and were entitled to the same fundamental rights as white citizens.

Because of these laws, Black men participated in government and held elected positions at the local, state and national levels.

Then, all too soon, it was over. White supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan were organized, using violence and intimidation to keep Blacks from voting or holding elected office. Jim Crow laws were enacted to disfranchise Blacks and limit their opportunities.

But the freed men and women has tasted just enough freedom to carry on their fight for justice and equality. That’s because during the Reconstruction Era, the groundwork for the civil rights movement was laid. And the fight continued.

So, as I think about Juneteenth and its meaning to Blacks, and indeed all Americans. I think of how far we as a nation have come. I think, too, of how far back some people want to send us.

To me, Juneteenth should remind us of the reasons why we as a nation cannot put our efforts into making America “great again.” Making America “greater again” doesn’t look to promising to people who look like me.

Better still, it is up to us all to make our country GREATER — for all its citizens.