Juneteenth - 160 of Celebrating Liberation, Freedom and Family

Juneteenth: Over A Century of Texas Tradition

Texas has been celebrating Juneteenth since 1866 - and now it is a National Holiday that is celebrated around the United States of America. This celebration reminds Americans of the price of freedom and the sacrifice of those who would liberate the enslaved and create the United States of America that rewards merit based on character and skill, rather than the color of one’s skin. From the abolitionist Christians of the 1800’s who worked with escaped slaves, such as Harriett Tubman, to create the Underground railroad, to the Freedom Riders who were killed in the pursuit of voting rights for all citizens, many Americans paid the price for a “more perfect union” and Juneteenth is a way to honor them as well. 
For many African Americans, the celebration is one of family and remembrance. The picnics of the 1860’s that marked the first Juneteenth celebrations were held in churches, or in a family’s field, with elders relating their family history in the oral tradition, so that their children and grandchildren might learn from the past and find a way to make a better life. This family time is still a large part of Juneteenth and the remembrance of those whose stories were not written about in the history books or novels, but whose lives impacted the world just the same. 
This year marks 160 years since the first Juneteenth celebration happened on Galveston Island. As news spread from the southern tip of Texas to the piney woods of North Texas and beyond, the family gatherings and celebrations grew and became annual. Now, 160 years later, the celebration can be a shared experience of liberation, freedom and family. 
Today I had a private celebration. I visited someone who reminds me that the struggle can continue, despite you. Hollie Tatnell was born in 1859 in the area now known as Hearne. She was the property of one of the Hearne family, until the day that she was freed in June 1866. The news of her freedom probably did not reach the eight-year-old Hollie until that fall, but her family settled into the area after their liberation and became farmers, rather than enslaved laborers. When Miss Tatnell died in 1911, at the age of 52, she had seen many Juneteenth celebrations come and go. She had told the stories of her family and taught her children that they had roots and a heritage. Having ancestry is something that those of us whose great, greats came from Europe, take for granted. Our heritage can be traced back many centuries, while those who were liberated in 1866, only had the stories of those who lived to tell their tales. Miss Tatnell was interred in the black cemetery, known at the time as the "colored graveyard" and still remains the only person still interred in the cemetery. In 1947, some developers decided to purchase the land and raze the cemetery, forcing relatives to move and rebury their loved ones. Miss Tatnell's family refused to allow the developers to remove her body, and they were forced to build around her. Her gravestone is a touchstone for me when I feel like life is a bit overwhelming. I learned of Miss Tatnell before I became a writer in the area. I came across her tree one day as I was meandering about Hearne and I had to stop and see why there was a tree with a plaque in the middle of the road. Her stories at Juneteenth affected her children and grandchildren. Her children, one went to work in Washington DC and the other became an MD, were encouraged by her Juneteenth stories and those of others who had gone before. The ancestors who taught her how to cook greens or mend a sock or how to hoe a row of beans were in her stories, and those stories were handed down to her children's children, too.  This part of Juneteenth is the part that needs to be shared. As Americans, we need to hear each other's ancestor stories and recognize that we are all survivors of the former system of enslavement. All Americans were liberated from the evil of slavery by the Emancipation Proclamation, not just those who were physically enslaved, but those who would be enslaved by a system of thought that allowed a group of people to own another group of people. We are more free now and we need to hear each other's stories so that we can heal and become family again.
I encourage all members of the community, white, black, Hispanic and all my Desi pals, to join in the celebration. Revel in the fact that this United States is still a place where history can bend towards justice. As the parties divide us as citizens, let us enjoy a party that is meant to unite us. We, as members of this great country, must remind each other that we have each other’s backs. That, when push comes to shove, we are all Americans and we really all want the same things. We want safe schools that educate our children. We want clean cities that have jobs that support the citizens. We want opportunities for creative people to enrich our lives with art and culture. And we can all agree on one thing, we love to throw a party. So let’s all get to our nearest Juneteenth event, or maybe a few, and celebrate a truly American holiday.