Despite the fact that this administration and even Google has removed Juneteenth from the US Calendar, the holiday continues to do its job of reminding us how precious and precarious our freedom truly is.
Even though the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect January 1, 1863, it wasn’t until after the war ended on April 9, 1865, that the US Army began to enforce it. And it wasn’t until June 19, 1865 that the US Army made it to Galveston, TX to carry out justice. It took nearly 300 hundred years to end slavery, another three years to enforce it, and three minutes to erase it from the calendar in an attempt to erase history.
But it’s not really about the holiday, per se, or about white enslavers trying to keep a grip on their power. Juneteenth is about us. The African Diaspora is vast and beautiful, and includes a multitude of journeys towards freedom. African nations, the Caribbean, Latin America, and so many more countries all have a holiday that celebrates freedom from colonial oppression. Even before this administration took over, the Black American community has taken a huge step back after fighting for and protecting our freedom for 170 years.
As cities like LA struggle to push out ICE, a few people have taken to social media wondering where the Black community is in all of this as the immigration crackdown continues. Although the organizing push has not necessarily come from Black American organizations, who are bringing a dish to the potluck but no longer hosting, many individual Black folks are lending their time, strength, and bodies to this fight.
Organizations like Freedom To Thrive continue to advocate for Black immigrants, collect data, and spread awareness. People often conflate the word “immigrant” with “Latine”. It rarely conjures images of Jamaicans, Haitians, Congolese, or Liberians.
The data alone speaks for itself. According to the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, African, Caribbean, and Afro-Latine immigrants accounted for approximately 20% of individuals facing deportation on criminal grounds, despite representing only about 7% of the country’s undocumented population. A 2020 study by the nonprofit RAICES found that bonds for these individuals are set at rates 54% higher than the average detainee, and that they are more likely to experience physical violence during detention. With statistics like these that can only be getting worse, it is anti-Black and unwise to label the issues immigrants face as only a Latine problem.
Enslaved Texans remained in bondage until the Lincoln administration sent in the US Army to tell them they were free. Now, as the Trump administration uses the military in the opposite direction, we express our freedom by protesting and pushing them out of LA and other cities as Trump already plans to deploy tactical units to New York City, Philadelphia, northern Virginia, Chicago, and Seattle.
Holidays bring the community together to celebrate, get our breath back, and build up our faith in ourselves and each other. This Juneteenth, as we celebrate Black America’s Independence Day, remember all of the liberation days around the world and why we have them.
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