Tag Archives: Juneteenth

California’s black town

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The traditional Juneteenth celebration, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, is kicking off this weekend in a small California town with serious roots in black history.

You’d think that the day that slavery formally came to an end in the United States would be a day of celebration for black Americans — and traditionally, it is. But it’s not the day that “mainstream” America might think it is. And it has nothing to do with the Emancipation Proclamation.

It falls every June 19, marking the day in 1865 when the Union Army took control of the last bastion of Confederate slavery, in Galveston, TX.

Ever since, the day has been known among black folks in this country as “Juneteenth,” and it is celebrated to the present day, across the United States and even beyond.

NOTE
Since June 19 falls on a weekday this year — Tuesday, to be exact — many locales will be hosting Juneteenth celebrations this weekend, June 9-10. Check your local schedules.

Galveston may be the ideal place to mark Juneteenth. The city always puts on a series of events for the occasion, and with 32 miles of beaches on an island in the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston doesn’t need historical reasons to throw a party.

Of course, not everyone can get down to Galveston, but Juneteenth is celebrated almost anywhere you can find black Americans. One of those places is in California’s Central Valley.

Allensworth, CA.

ARMY CHAPLAIN, ORIGINAL “GANGSTA”
When Lt.Col. Allen Allensworth established it back in 1908, it was the only town in California founded, financed and governed by black Americans.

allen allensworth

allen allensworth

Born into slavery, Allensworth was the original black “gangsta.” When he wasn’t being punished for trying to escape, he was being punished for trying to learn how to read and write.

In the eyes of the slaveowners, that latter “crime” made him extremely dangerous — and if you look at it from their point of view, they were absolutely right.

During the Civil War, he finally made good his escape and joined the Union Army, eventually becoming a chaplain.

The decades that followed the end of the war may have brought emancipation for the slaves, but they also brought legalized discrimination, harassment, lynching, right into the 20th century.

With little hope that things would be better anytime soon in the old Dirty South, Allensworth turned his eyes west. He wanted to create a town where black families could own their own homes, their own land, run their own farms and control their own destinies, beyond the reach of Jim Crow.

No oppression. No artificial barriers. No excuses. No fear. Their motto:

“Never abandon the high ground of right for the low lands and swamps of expediency. No man was ever lost in a straight road.”

The spot he chose wasn’t exactly a lush, bucolic, picture postcard setting. It was hot, dry, dusty and table-flat — just as it is today. But the land was cheap and water was readily available.

SUCCESS THAT DRIED UP
And for the first few years, it worked, beautifully.

It not only was a successful farming community but a railroad stop, where cattle ranchers and farmers from surrounding areas could send their products to market. Allensworth had visions of seeing a college built there, eventually turning the town into “the Tuskegee of the West.”

The dream didn’t last, however. When the water table dropped as big farms farther up the valley siphoned off its water supply, farming in the town became imposible. Allensworth’s original inhabitants eventually pulled out.

But the memory of that pioneering effort and Lt. Col. Allensworth’s vision, as is a portion of the town itself, is preserved at the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park.

And while landlocked Allensworth has no beaches with which to match Galveston, Juneteenth will be celebrated there, too. There will be food and drink, a guided tour of its nine historic buildings, and some terrific speakers.

One of those speakers is a friend of mine named Shay Olivarria. Her motto — “the world is bigger than your block” — was one of the original inspirations for this blog, and still is.

With or without the Juneteenth celebration, Allensworth is a piece of black American history worth remembering, because its founder’s vision still has currency today.

Allensworth can be reached from Los Angeles or San Francisco by car. From Los Angeles, take Interstate 5 and state Highway 99 north to Delano, then head west on Graces Highway to the Central Valley Highway, aka state Highway 43. Turn north again to Allensworth.

From Northern California, take I-5 south to the Paso Robles Highway, aka state Highway 46. Head east to the Central Valley Highway, and there turn north to Allensworth.

DID YOU KNOW?
Although Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of black Americans from bondage, slavery, in a narrow sense, is still technically legal in the United States.

It’s spelled out in Section 1 of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — the same amendment that your history teachers told you granted freedom to the slaves:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

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Juneteenth
CELEBRATING FREEDOM

CELEBRATING FREEDOM

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This Sunday, June 19, is one of the most special — and least understood — dates in American history.

June 19 is the date that black America traditionally commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.

We call it Juneteenth. And it has nothing to do with the much better known Emancipation Proclamation.

This date takes some explaining, most of which I did when I introduced IBIT readers to my Aunt Lillie.

Basically, it’s the date in 1865 that a Union Army general landed a force in Galveston TX at the end of the Civil War to inform the locals — in no uncertain terms — that slavery was over and done, everywhere in the United States.

Across the South, black Americans newly freed from their generational bondage chose that day to celebrate their freedom. It became a day for food, festivity and family.

Thus was born Juneteenth.

But while it may have begun as a strictly Southern thing, it has extended far beyond the South. Today, you can find Juneteenth celebrations, formal and informal, across the country, almost any locale that has a black population of any size.

Indeed, you can now find Juneteenth being feted beyond our borders.

And there are some folks who want to take this even further. A campaign is underway to turn what has always been an unofficial, informal celebration into an officially recognized national holiday.

Being old enough to remember the bitter, virulent and downright hateful reactions to the idea of a holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., I’ll be curious to see what kind of response this idea receives in Congress.

In the end, however, it really makes no difference whether the country latches onto this idea as a tangible step toward healing or it never sees the light of day on Capitol Hill.

This is a day for black Americans to celebrate the liberation of their ancestors, and a day for all Americans to commemorate the moment when America did in 1865 what it should’ve done in 1776.

For a listing of Juneteenth events in your area, click here.

Be advised, though, that no such list should be considered 100 percent up-to-date. Make inquiries of your own.

And if you can’t find a Juneteenth celebration near you, you can always create one for yourself, even if you’re the only one celebrating.

Juneteenth

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Sunrise at Galveston Bay, Texas. This is where the sun set on American slavery.
© Paul Wolf via Dreamstime.com

Is this America’s most misunderstood holiday?

Aunt Lillie is a special person in my life, even though we never met. June 19 also is a special day — and both for the same reason.

It has to do with one of the lesser-known American holidays.

Aunt Lillie (she actually pronounced it la-LEÉ) lived most of her days in Bay St. Louis, MS. She was the last member of my family to be a slave.

At the height of the Civil War in 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery. But this only had force in those parts of the South the Union army controlled — which in 1862, wasn’t much.

Three years later, with the Confederacy crushed, a Union general named Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, TX and promptly laid down the law, which he read from a balcony to the local populace:

“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

Until that moment, to people like my Aunt Lillie, the Emancipation Proclamation had been little more than words on a page. Now, Lincoln’s promise to America of “a new birth of freedom” had been made real. This order would be heard throughout the South, but Galveston heard it first.

The date was June 19, 1865.

Someone eventually compressed that into Juneteenth, and former slaves everywhere — including Bay St. Louis — came to accept it as the date that marked their liberation. Many would treat it as a second birthday.

For decades thereafter, ex-slaves and their free-born kin would trek to Galveston in a pilgrimage not unlike that of Muslims to Mecca. The celebrations could last a week.

They sang. They danced. They went to church. They staged rodeos and paid homage to legendary black cowboys like Bill Pickett. They traced their ancestral roots. And they cooked. Barbecues became a Juneteenth staple.

Another staple was red soda. Sounds bizarre, I know, but they had their reasons.

Back in the day, strawberry-flavored soda drinks were new, exotic, pricey — and off-limits to slaves. Then came Juneteenth — and BANG! Instant tradition. Now, on your day, you drank the red soda. Strawberry-flavored, cream soda-flavored, whatever flavor. It just had to be red.

Their descendants were still doing it a century later, as R&B singer Joe Tex noted in one of his songs, “Men Are Getting Scarce:”

“She reminds me of them folks
up in Navisoda, Texas,
eatin’ barbecue and drinkin’ red sody water
on the 19th of June!”

(These days, there’s a Texas soft drink called Big Red that sells a lot on Juneteenth. Some love it. Others have likened its taste to ice-cold Robitussin. Either way, it’s sold in 44 of the 50 U.S. states…and Tahiti. Don’t ask.)

With the black migration from the rural South to the industrial North and expanding West, Juneteenth fell into decline, but the Civil Rights movement revived it. And in 1980, Texas recognized it as an official state holiday.

Today, across the country and even internationally, black Americans mark Juneteenth in a variety of ways — some public, some private, some communal, some personal.

And it’s a big to-do in Galveston.

As for my Aunt Lillie, she lived to be 104. She died a few years before I was born. She saw whole generations live and die in bondage. But her own life, begun in slavery, ended as one long drink of freedom.

I try to imagine how her spirit must have soared every year around this time. I try to fathom the joy, the gratitude she must have felt. And I try to comprehend the glow in her soul at the moment she realized that maybe, just maybe, all things really were possible.

That is why, every year on Juneteenth, I feel a gaze that I never saw, feel a voice that I never heardhellip;and I rejoice.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Lillie.

Galveston today is a city of about 60,000 people, less than an hour’s drive south of Houston. It sits at one end of a barrier island of the same name in the Gulf of Mexico.

That island has about 32 miles of uninterrupted beach and shoreline.

The city itself sports a Schlitterbahn waterpark, several historic ships and is one of the major cruise ship ports on the Gulf. It also offers activities ranging from jazz festivals to surf and skate camps.

Some of the best barbecue I’ve ever had in my life — and definitely the hottest — was in Galveston.

Galveston is one of the few places on Earth, if not the only one, that has a museum based on an offshore oil rig.

Among the items on exhibit there is a blowout preventer that you can see for yourself, up close. Given this year’s BP oil spill, which eventually may threaten Galveston’s economic existence, the irony of that particular display is breathtaking.

If you’d like to join in this year’s Juneteenth festivities — or just enjoy Galveston before the oil tide gets there — you can find more detailed visitor information on this site.