Juneteenth Column

Juneteenth was celebrated on Saturday in Upper Alton’s Salu Park. The celebration is said to have begun when Texas slaves were told of their freedom at the end of the Civil War. In some locales, the Emancipation Proclamation is read and includes theses words:  “I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; …And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

The slaves did not know of their proclaimed freedom, as Texas was on the outskirts of the war, and slaveholders had flocked there from Louisiana and other states. To be proclaimed free and to not know of it would be an wound. Not long before the last declaration of freedom, the 13th Amendment, written by Lyman Trumbull, who lived in Alton for some time, passed the Congress.Later the same year, the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery would be ratified.

History is a prized possession. I am delighted that Juneteenth provides a way for people to engage in local links to national events. It  provides examples of a people downtrodden who could rise through dint of character, aspiration, education, and perseverance, then and now. What a mixture of elation and confusion, celebration and anxiety must have greeted the news of emancipation.I did not realize that many former slaves changed their names to one that they selected, “because that is what a free person can do.” Here’s an excerpt from the Federal Writers Project collection of narratives of former slaves during the Depression:And I ain’t goin’ to get whipped any more. I got my ticket, Leavin’ the thicket, And I’m a-headin’ for the Golden Shore!” ... Everyone was a-singin. We was all walkin’ on golden clouds. Hallejujah! “Union forever, Hurrah, boys, hurrah Although I may be poor, Shoutin’ the battle cry of freedom!” Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes and nobody had made us that way but ourselves. We was free. Just like that, we was free...right off colored folks started on the move. They seemed to want to get closer to freedom, as they’d know what it was ⎯ like it was a place or a city. . . . We knowed freedom was on us, but we didn’t know what was to come with it. We thought we was goin’ to git rich like the white folks. We thought we was goin’ to be richer than the white folks, ’cause we was stronger and knowed how to work, and the whites didn’t and they didn’t have us to work for them anymore. But it didn’t turn out that way. We soon found out that freedom could make folks proud but it didn’t make them rich. FELIX HAYWOOD, enslaved in Texas, interviewed in Texas, ca. 1937 „

The summer solstice sits around the celebration. Freedom’s light beckoned.  In my lifetime, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 transformed us by stopping state-imposed discrimination. Stubbornly, so many measures of equality elude us, in terms of economic security, educational opportunity.Early last week, we had the opportunity to hear Old Crow Medicine Show (Wagon Wheel) perform Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde. One of their final songs was his  Blowin’ In the Wind.”Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist/ Before they're allowed to be free/Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head/And pretend that he just doesn't see.” The road to freedom is a long one, sometimes unseen and it requires much light.