by Kay Bolden
The Emancipation Proclamation did not really free anyone–at least, not right away. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed in 1863 that all the enslaved people in the Confederate states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” But the proclamation only applied to places under Confederate control, and the South had not yet been subdued by Northern forces.
Without TV and social media, the news of freedom took two full years to reach Texas. In 1865, on Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”), federal troops seized control of the state, and announced that slavery was finally ended. Celebrations broke out among newly freed Black people, and Juneteenth was born.
Despite the pain and degradation of their years of servitude, they found joy. Despite the uncertainties of the future, they chose joy. Despite all the dangerous times they knew were ahead, they lifted their voices in song and prayer, and danced long into the night.
Because Black joy is what we do. It is how we survive.
It was a time when Black people gathering, laughing, singing, dancing, and celebrating was often depicted as child-like, as proof of our contentment with our “place” in the white world, or described as “laziness”.
But our Black joy was — and still is — resistance to white supremacy. It was our refusal to submit in our souls, even if we had to temporarily submit with our bodies. Our joy is determination and faith, community and family, music and art and love. Our joy is how we have survived the brutality of being Black in America.
As author Adrienne Marie Brown says, “… we hunt down pleasure in all its forms: love, great sex, nourishing community, amazing food … Forging space for our pleasure takes space away from repression/oppression … joy can be a form of resistance that is fierce.”
Today, society appropriates our music, our food, our fashion for profit, but never sees its true purpose. Black joy keeps us whole, no matter how bad things get in the world.
Resistance was my grandmother’s joy every Christmas, taking me to high tea on Chicago’s State Street, her head held high in the midst of disapproving white shoppers. Resistance is your neighbor’s house parties and your sorority’s debutante balls. It’s poetry slams and church solos, Black civic groups, and Negro baseball leagues.
Resistance is being called inside when the streetlights come on, having your bath with your silly cousins, snuggling into your bed while the grown-ups laugh long into the night.
Of course, the struggle wasn’t over for the newly freed Black Texans. It is far from over today, some 150 years later. Just recently, after an 18-year-old white gunman shot 10 people to death at a grocery store in a Black neighborhood of upstate New York, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said, “We are seeing an epidemic of hate across our country that has been evidenced by acts of violence and intolerance.” To Black people, it is all too familiar.
If we truly–all of us, all races–want to end racial animosity, we will have to do more than take the day off for Juneteenth and tear down a few statues and sing Kumbaya. We will have to take an honest look at the destruction white supremacy has caused, and actively work to eradicate it from our personal relationships, our businesses, our faith circles, our schools, our economic structures, and our politics.
And while we’re pressing forward, we can remember that there aren’t enough bullets in America, not enough ropes and trees, not enough vicious ex-presidents, and murderous cops, to take our joy, our spirit, our determination.
On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, making it a federal holiday. And I’m celebrating today. I’m cooking for my family and planting my tomatoes. I’m playing my music loud and singing even louder. I’m calling my silly cousins and laughing long into the night.
My Black joy is my act of resistance. It’s my celebration of my people’s survival, despite the centuries of efforts to destroy us. We’re still here, and we will not be moved.
Happy Juneteenth. Go make some joy.