Celebrating Black emancipation on Juneteenth is a ‘comfortable compromise’ | GUEST COMMENTARY

Juneteenth still puzzles me, though, of course, it’s now a widely recognized national celebration. I first heard of it as a college student in the mid-1970s. As a child growing up in southern Virginia, I heard about the 9th of April. Never loudly, but my grandmother and other Black people were very much aware that it was an important day. Here’s why.

On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses Grant, effectively ending the Civil War. The people around me found this important. They knew it but they never discussed it too loudly. In Virginia and throughout the South, Robert E. Lee was a favorite son and hero. In school, we learned of him as a great general, never what he fought for, and very little about his surrender. Grant was the “other” general.

On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order effective Jan. 1, 1863, freeing enslaved people. This bit of history we knew about, but again no serious celebrations. I think the Jim Crow South was content to pretend that this never happened.

Word of Lee’s surrender and the actual end of the Civil War did not officially reach Galveston, Texas, until June 19, 1865. Hence the celebration of Juneteenth.

Why do we celebrate the delayed communication to the remote South instead of the actual emancipation on Sept. 22, 1862, or the actual end of the Civil War on April 9, 1865? This was likely another of many accommodations to the former Confederacy. In many circles, it is still impolite to talk about the South losing the war, or that the cause of the Confederacy was defeated. Thus, instead of celebrating the Union victory and the actual African slave emancipation, Juneteenth becomes a comfortable compromise. It avoids an unpleasant “In your face” to the defeated South.

The 13th Amendment officially abolishing slavery was passed Dec. 6, 1865. This timeline often ignores the thousands of enslaved Africans who freed themselves as the Union army came through by simply walking away from the plantations during the war. In fact, Lincoln’s proclamation was more a recognition of the Africans’ self-emancipation than an order to be carried out.  It was thought to be a military strategy to weaken the South by taking away the economic support, enslaved labor, needed to fund the Confederate army. It was a recognition that the African self-emancipation was already weakening the Confederacy. This was so real that in fact the Confederacy itself considered emancipating the so-called slaves in a last-ditch effort to salvage its economic base.  Lincoln beat them to it. There can be a debate as to whether the South would have actually followed through.

So, when I think of African American emancipation, I am less likely to praise the traditional version (they freed us) including the Juneteenth saga and realize that in many ways African Americans freed themselves against the wishes of the South and much of the North. I am not glib enough to pretend that this would have happened absent the resounding defeat of the Confederacy by the Union. Lincoln had made it clear that the war was to save the Union and not to free the enslaved people.

The Civil War was one of many wars fought and won by the United States. It was an internal war and, as such, there are scars and painful wounds throughout the land. Nevertheless, the America of 2024 owes more to Jan. 1, 1862, April 9, 1865, and Dec. 6, 1865. Juneteenth is a non-threatening compromise to acknowledge the freedom of the formerly enslaved (in Texas) without celebrating the actual end of a horrible war. Of course, I am not against the holiday; I appreciate cookouts. But somehow the 9th of April, recognized by my grandmother, strikes a deeper chord.

John L. Hudgins (jhudgins@coppin.edu) is an associate professor of sociology at Coppin State University and co-director of its Human Services Administration.