Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Freedom Ride: How Not to Celebrate Juneteenth
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
16 Jun 2021
Freedom Ride: How Not to Celebrate Juneteenth
Freedom Ride: How Not to Celebrate Juneteenth

Juneteenth has become the latest iteration of liberal capture of Black politics, opportunistic virtue signaling, and the intentional misrepresentation of America’s history.

“An opportunity to discuss resistance against oppression has been turned into a substance-free feel good day.”

Juneteenth was largely a regional holiday celebrated by Black people in Texas and other southern states. It commemorates the events of June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston and announced that slavery ended as per General Order Number 3. "The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” It is an important event that ought to be remembered, but its true significance has been lost. Juneteenth has become the latest iteration of liberal capture of Black politics, opportunistic virtue signaling, and the intentional misrepresentation of America’s history.

Corrupt and avaricious corporations honor Juneteenth and cynical politicians give it great attention. There are calls to make it an official federal holiday. Unfortunately, the most common narratives of the Civil War are fraught with lies meant to give dispensation to bad actors of that era and to sanitize awful truths.

Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863 and is one of the most misunderstood documents in history. Lincoln was far from the great emancipator of the American imagination. In the early days of the war he ordered that enslaved people who escaped to Union lines be returned to their slaveholders. His goal was to accommodate the southern states as much as possible and keep them, and their peculiar institution, in the Union. Only rebel intransigence and the determination of the enslaved to be free changed his plans.

“Corrupt and avaricious corporations honor Juneteenth and cynical politicians give it great attention.”

Lincoln wanted to prevent slave holding states Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri from seceding. That is why the Proclamation freed only those people located in states that had already seceded, that is to say under Confederate control, which made it practically meaningless as a tool of emancipation. The Proclamation also exempted those areas of the Confederacy which were already under Union control. 

He also insisted that the little emancipation that he offered be tied to colonization, the relocation of Black people outside of the country. It is rarely mentioned that he signed such a colonization plan on December 31, 1862, the day before signing the Emancipation Proclamation. A group of 500 “contrabands” were sent to Île à Vache, a small island off the coast of Haiti, in 1863. They were ravaged by hunger and disease and only 365 survived when they were rescued in 1865.

The insistence on continuing this pro-Lincoln mythology has turned the Juneteenth story into a nonsensical fairy tale. We are told that enslaved people didn’t know the war had ended and didn’t know they should have been freed until the Union army arrived in Texas. 

“The Proclamation freed only those people located in states that had already seceded.”

Of course, Texans of all races knew that Robert E. Lee surrendered his armies in April 1865 and they knew that Lincoln was assassinated shortly thereafter. They had newspapers and the telegraph and letters from those who left the battlefield. Enslaved people were aware of anything that white people knew. They overheard conversations and saw white soldiers returning home. Some were on the battlefield as laborers in the Confederate army. The official announcement only confirmed what they already knew.

The explanation of the late announcement is very simple. Texas is further west and was off the beaten path of the Union army. It took them two months to establish their victory and send troops to Confederate hinterlands. It is also not surprising that the slaveholders wouldn’t free anyone until they absolutely had to. There was no one able to enforce Lincoln’s two-year old decree and they simply went about business as usual, squeezing the last ounce of forced labor out of their human chattel while they had the chance.

Juneteenth is an opportunity to tell the history of the enslaved people who freed themselves when they could and joined the army to form the United States Colored Troops (USCT). The untold importance of the Emancipation Proclamation is that it established the right of escaped people to join the army. Frederick Douglass and others pleaded with Lincoln for two years to arm the people who had the greatest stake in the outcome of the war. Juneteenth is an opportunity to debunk and demystify. 

“Texans of all races knew that Robert E. Lee surrendered his armies in April 1865 and they knew that Lincoln was assassinated shortly thereafter.”

Any effort to make Juneteenth a national holiday should be viewed with caution. Such a designation would only continue the telling of false tales. It would allow the bad actors of the present day to get away with cheap theatrics while continuing the legal and economic structures which still oppress Black people. The true story of the past would be kept hidden and the story of the present would be sugar coated.

Juneteenth was a big event in the segregated south, a people's holiday. That is how it should remain. Corporations which work against the people's interests should not be allowed to absolve themselves by engaging in performative acts. Politicians who aid them at every turn should not be permitted to utter Juneteenth platitudes and create a new public relations farce. An opportunity to discuss resistance against oppression has been turned into a substance-free feel good day. 

Black people don’t need governmental or corporate acknowledgement in order to tell their stories. In fact, learning history for our own sake is of paramount importance. Juneteenth can be the starting point for further study. Let Juneteenth remain a commemoration with significance for ourselves. Doing otherwise inevitably leads to confusion.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com . Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.  

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at [email protected]

Juneteenth

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Problem with Juneteenth
19 June 2024
As we approach Juneteenth, Black Agenda Report is republishing this article
The Duplicitous Legacy Of Bipartisan Compromise Obscured From The History Of Juneteenth Is Too Important To Ignore
Jacqueline Luqman
The Duplicitous Legacy Of Bipartisan Compromise Obscured From The History Of Juneteenth Is Too Important To Ignore
21 June 2023
The Juneteenth holiday is an opportunity to delve into Black history in a serious way.
The Problem with Juneteenth
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Problem with Juneteenth
15 June 2022
Juneteenth was a people's holiday with deep meaning for the descendants of enslaved people.
The Hidden History of Juneteenth
Gregory P. Downs
The Hidden History of Juneteenth
23 June 2021
“We knowed what was goin’ on in [the war] all the time,” said Felix Haywood, dismissing the notion that his fellow Texas slaves were ignorant of th

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio May 30, 2025
    30 May 2025
    In this week’s segment we talk about jails and prisons in New York City and State and the end of city control of the infamous Rikers Island jail. But first a Washington DC activist analyzes how the…
  • Democratic party where are you
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Afeni on Fighting the Bipartisan Fascist Consensus
    30 May 2025
    Afeni is an activist and lead organizer with Herb and Temple in Washington, DC. She joins us from Oakland to discuss politics in the U.S. and how the people can fight the fascism produced by the…
  • Rikers protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Eric Adams Loses Control of Rikers Island to Federal Receivership
    30 May 2025
    Our guest is Melanie Dominguez, Organizing Director, New York with the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. She joins us from New York City to discuss the federal takeover of Rikers Island…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Charles Rangel and the End of Black Politics
    28 May 2025
    The late Charles Rangel served as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus for more than 40 years. But the goals of Black politics and electoral politics are not necessarily the same.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Intellectual Origins of Imperialism and Zionism, Edward Said, 1977
    28 May 2025
    “In theory and in practice, then, Zionism is a degraded repetition of European imperialism.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us