MORE than two years before June 19, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln had officially outlawed slavery in Texas and the other states in rebellion against the Union. The enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation was slow and inconsistent in Texas, so that more than 250 thousand were still enslaved, even though the law had freed them, just because the information regarding their freedom was withheld.
Thanks to the announcement of general Gordon Granger and the ratification of the abolition by the 13th Amendment, the Proclamation held sway at least in principle. Today, Juneteenth is celebrated to commemorate Granger's public restatement of a fact of freedom.
However, what was the nature of the freedom?
Freedom into what? Freedom into nothingness, freedom into poverty. While European immigrants from impoverished backgrounds, in late 1800s, were being given land opportunities and economic headstart, blacks, who had worked the land in servitude for nearly three hundred years, whose blood, sweat and tears built the economic foundations and prosperity of the American nation, were given no land or gratuity. Right from start their right to survival was disenfranchised. They were disempowered from living out that freedom they had so longed for.
In biblical Hebrew society, a slave was freed after six years of serving, based on the Mosaic regulation of manumission. Freed slaves were not allowed to go empty-handed. They were released with gratuity. "You shall furnish [them] liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress" (Deut15:13-14).
Given that the United States was birthed and formed upon Judeo-Christian principles, one would expect that the 13th Amendment would have adopted the biblical edict of manumission. Christianity in America today is predominantly an evangelical tradition. The reality of that is yet to be seen in upholding a redemptive approach in the integration of blacks into the American society.
One hundred and fifty five years after, blacks in the United States are still grappling with the reality of freedom. The embers of slavery is still being stoked up in racial injustices, whether covertly or overtly, in socioeconomic disparities against African Americans and the almost every day sting of discrimination they suffer because of the colour of their skin.
The ideals of Juneteenth should go beyond an annual celebration and the observance of a national holiday. The true spirit of Jubilee should redefine the application of the 13th Amendment, starting with a reorientation in the psyche of all Americans, whites, blacks and coloureds.
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