On June 19, 1865, 2,000 Union troops marched into Galveston Bay, Texas.
They carried a message for the 250,000 enslaved people of the Confederate state — and the people who owned them. Slavery was over.
This was the last corner of America to hear the news. It came three years after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. It came six months after the 13th Amendment patched freedom into the fabric of the U.S. Constitution. It came two months and 10 days after the Civil War ended and the Confederacy folded.
It has been celebrated since as Juneteenth, a new Independence Day less about a declaration than a deliverance. And now, 156 years after those soldiers brought the news to Texas, Congress and the White House have finished the journey, making it a federal holiday. In an era of severe partisanship, it’s worth underlining that the Senate’s approval was unanimous, and the House tally was virtually the same (with only 14 members voting no).
On Friday, state and federal offices closed their doors to observe the day, although not all counties in Pennsylvania have decided how they will observe the holiday.
Yet regardless of the observation, Juneteenth has lessons for us all.
Some are about persistence. When Lincoln put pen to paper in 1862, he made a decree but it changed little in the lives of most enslaved people, who were, after all, in the states that still allowed slavery and had seceded to do so. It was still a step that made a statement.
It took more work to go from statement to fact. It always does. Civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights. None have been as easy as a signature at the bottom of a page.
Another lesson is about the importance of communication and accountability.
The soldiers who walked into Texas didn’t free anyone. That had already been done by proclamation, legislation and surrender.
The important work of the troops was in making sure the people knew what had happened and where they stood. It is perhaps the greatest duty of government because the work that is done to ensure the rights of the people means nothing if the people are not aware they have rights.
With that in mind, if we are to truly celebrate Juneteenth as a holiday, it cannot just be by closing doors. It must be by opening conversations. In the truest tradition of what happened that day in Texas, we should spend more time making sure that information in Pennsylvania is freely available to those who need it most.
— The Tribune-Review, Greensburg/TNS
