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COMMENTARY: Juneteenth Holiday Touches Collective Memory of African American: It Deserves Honor

Dec. 31, 1862, then, would become the Watch Night of all Watch Nights. Ninety-nine days earlier, Pres. Abraham Lincoln had announced his intention to free people enslaved in most of the Southern states. It was sometime late the morning of Jan. 1, 1863, when Lincoln finally signed the document known as the Emancipation Proclamation and word immediately crossed the country, tapped out in Morse code on telegraph wires.

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Martha Yates Jones (left) and Pinkie Yates (right), daughters of Rev. Jack Yates, in a decorated carriage parked in front of the Antioch Baptist Church located in Houston's Fourth Ward, 1908. Photo courtesy of Houston Public Library Digital Collection.Martha Yates Jones (left) and Pinkie Yates (right), daughters of Rev. Jack Yates, in a decorated carriage parked in front of the Antioch Baptist Church located in Houston's Fourth Ward, 1908. Photo courtesy of Houston Public Library Digital Collection.
Martha Yates Jones (left) and Pinkie Yates (right), daughters of Rev. Jack Yates, in a decorated carriage parked in front of the Antioch Baptist Church located in Houston's Fourth Ward, 1908. Photo courtesy of Houston Public Library Digital Collection.

By Wanda J. Ravernell

It was a long time coming.

For centuries, they had prayed, fought and died seeking freedom from slavery.

The day they had awaited they called ‘Jubilee.’

Depending on where they resided, the day of ‘Jubilee’ came in fits and starts. In New Hampshire, the last slave was freed in 1853, New York in 1827 and Pennsylvania by 1810.

Enslaved people vicariously celebrated the 1791 revolt in Haiti leading to the first Black republic in the Western Hemisphere in 1804. The 1834 manumission of Blacks in Jamaica was another milestone.

During the slave era, New Year’s Day was dreaded as it was when enslavers settled their debts with the lives of their ‘property.’ New Year’s Eve, then was not celebrated, but rather spent in fervent prayer that their loved ones not be sold away.

Dec. 31, 1862, then, would become the Watch Night of all Watch Nights. Ninety-nine days earlier, Pres. Abraham Lincoln had announced his intention to free people enslaved in most of the Southern states. It was sometime late the morning of Jan. 1, 1863, when Lincoln finally signed the document known as the Emancipation Proclamation and word immediately crossed the country, tapped out in Morse code on telegraph wires.

But news of Jubilee didn’t reach Texas.

It would be two and half years and more than two months after the Confederate army surrendered to a Union Army that included Black men that soldiers brought the news to Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865.

The date would be contracted to Juneteenth and become the most widely and continuous celebration of the end of slavery in the U.S. Other states had Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, but those observations had died out as, for the sake of assimilation, Blacks distanced themselves from that dark past.

But not Black Texans, who took their custom with them during the Great Migration that began in earnest in 1915.

In Western cities with sizeable Black populations Juneteenth observations sprang up without the sanction of local government. (Texas would declare Juneteenth a statewide holiday in 1980.)

San Francisco (48 years), Berkeley (35 years), San Jose (41 years) and Vallejo (28 years) are Bay Area cities that have formalized the observation.

In Oakland, for the third year, Councilmember Loren Taylor and Project Lend A Hand– which provides school supplies for needy children — will hold a Juneteenth fundraiser called In the Town.

Barbara Howard of Brilliant Minds Inc., has held a Juneteenth the Last Saturday of the month since 2008. It will take place on June 25, 2022 ,at 925 Brockhurst St. It is free and open to the public

Others, like American Canyon, are holding their first Juneteenths, now that it has become the latest federal holiday, signed into law by Pres. Joe Biden on June 17, 2021.

Juneteenths have typically followed the pattern of those in Texas with parades, barbecues, and festivals, but making Juneteenth a national holiday has some Black people wondering what to do.

Unlike the other holidays that mark the summer, this one has meaning closer to our collective heart.

Frederick Douglass famously asked, “to what is the slave the Fourth of July?” because they had no freedom to celebrate.

Flowers brought to gravesides mark the monuments to loss on Memorial and Veterans’ Day.

But for many of us, these holidays (holy days) are mostly opportunities to gather with loved ones, have some food, play cards, eat some ’que and dance to recorded music in the summer and sleep late on chilly November 11.

So, what do we do with this holiday? This clearly holy day for our enslaved ancestors? How do we honor those who didn’t live to see the day of Jubilee?

And then there’s the quintessential question pushing forward from the back of the collective Black mind: How free are we? With mass incarceration and the persistent ills of the modern Jim Crow era, some would say that slavery never ended.

Research shows that in the initial decades after the news reached Galveston, the formerly enslaved went to church and prayed and gave thanks for the freedom they had attained.

More than 150 years later, perhaps we can set our natural cynicism aside long enough to be happy for our ancestors’ moment.

Perhaps, we won’t go to church. But we can light a candle. We can sing a freedom song together or sing the Black National Anthem in its entirety. We can hang the black, red and green Liberation colors or the Juneteenth flag in the front window.

We can set aside a symbolic plate of ’que, potato salad and greens and pour on the ground a libation of some red drink – hibiscus or Johnny Walker Red.

We can express our gratitude that they lived so we could live.

But perhaps most important, we need to teach our children. And maybe, just maybe they’ll bless us with a freestyle rhyme in the holy names of our ancestors.

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Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024

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Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024

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Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌

Advocates Weigh in on Calif. Black Caucus Reparations Package

On Feb. 21, the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) held a press conference at the state Capitol to introduce a package of reparations legislation the lawmakers call “a starting point” to atone for the state’s legacy of discrimination. All 12 members of the CLBC were present to explain their efforts to rectify the damages caused by systemic discrimination against Black Californians detailed in the 1,100-page report by the first-in-the-nation California reparations task force.

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Assemblymember Lori Wilson (D- Suisun City) speaks at the press conference with all CLBC members in attendance discussing their 2024 Reparations legislative priority bills. Photo by Antonio Ray Harvey California Black Media.
Assemblymember Lori Wilson (D- Suisun City) speaks at the press conference with all CLBC members in attendance discussing their 2024 Reparations legislative priority bills. Photo by Antonio Ray Harvey California Black Media.

By Antonio Ray Harvey

California Black Media 

On Feb. 21, the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) held a press conference at the state Capitol to introduce a package of reparations legislation the lawmakers call “a starting point” to atone for the state’s legacy of discrimination.

All 12 members of the CLBC were present to explain their efforts to rectify the damages caused by systemic discrimination against Black Californians detailed in the 1,100-page report by the first-in-the-nation California reparations task force.

The nine-member panel submitted the recommendations on June 28, 2023.

CLBC chairperson Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City) said it may take three to seven years to pass legislation aimed at implementing the task force’s recommendations.

The package the CLBC members presented consists of 14 legislative proposals, each designed to address different aspects of systemic racism and inequality.

One proposal, Senate Bill (SB) 490, put forth by CLBC Vice Chair Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Inglewood), calls for the establishment of the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency (CAFAA).

This agency would administer reparations programs and aid Black families researching their family lineage. The cost of implementing such an agency has not yet been estimated, but reparations advocates say its creation signifies a step toward acknowledging and rectifying past injustices.

Another proposal by Assemblymember Cory Jackson (D-Riverside), ACA 7, seeks to amend Prop 209, the initiative passed by voters in 1996 that prohibits considering race, color, sex, or nationality in public employment, education, and contracting decisions.

This amendment would allow the governor to approve exceptions to the law in order to address poverty and improve educational outcomes for African Americans and other marginalized groups.

Bradford also discussed proposal legislation aimed at compensating families whose properties were seized through eminent domain as a result of racism and discrimination.

The package of bills includes a measure proposed by Assemblymember Reggie Jones Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), Assembly Bill (AB) 3089 to formally acknowledge California’s history of slavery and discrimination, requiring lawmakers to issue a formal apology.

Additionally, a proposed constitutional amendment, ACA 8, sponsored by Wilson aims to ban involuntary servitude, particularly within the state’s prison system.

Reparations advocates and social justice groups from statewide organizations shared their support and criticism of the 14-bill reparations package with California Black Media (CBM).

A Coalition for a Just and Equitable California (CJEC) stated that the CLBC’s package does not address direct-cash payment, which, for that group’s leadership, is a non-negotiable component of any proposed compensation package.

“Our coalition’s unwavering commitment has been to pursue lineage-based reparations, encompassing direct monetary payments/compensation, state recognition of descendants as a protected class, and the establishment of the California American Freedman Affairs Agency through Senate Bill (SB) 490,” CJEC member Chris Lodgson outlined in a statement.

Lodgson continued, “We believe these vital components are imperative and a necessary first step toward true reparations. As we’ve communicated to elected officials directly for some time, we believe any reparations package must be targeted explicitly and exclusively to California’s 2 million Black American descendants of persons enslaved in the U.S. (American Freedmen).”

Media present at the news briefing persistently questioned Wilson and other CLBC members about direct payments.

Wilson mentioned that the budget deficit California is currently facing is being considered in discussions about compensation. A Legislative Analyst’s Office report released  Feb. 20, estimates that the state’s budget shortfall could expand to $73 billion by May.

“In regard to direct-cash payments to individuals, we will continue to have that discussion as we navigate the next few years,” Wilson said. “As noted, we’re halfway through a legislative session. We have about three months of the legislative process in each house (Senate and Assembly) to work through these existing bills.

“In the next session, we have two years, and during that two-year session, we will consider including additional payments whether they are direct-cash payments or direct payments to communities,” Wilson said.

The Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth (ARRT), a collaboration of California’s leading Black power-building and justice groups, supports seven of CLBC’s 14 reparations bills with proposals that include the restoration of property, establishing the property tax assistance for Descendants of Enslaved Persons program, a formal apology for human rights violations and crimes against humanity, amending the California Constitution to prohibit involuntary servitude for incarcerated persons, and prohibiting discrimination based on natural and protective hairstyles.

“The California Legislative Black Caucus reparations package marks a historic and meaningful moment in time. ARRT encourages lawmakers to pursue an even more expansive and definitive action to fulfill the reparations principles as recognized by the United Nations,” stated James Woodson, AART co-founder and executive director of the California Black Power Network. “Reparative justice must be impactful, transformative, and enduring, thus paving the way toward atoning for the wrongdoings deeply imprinted in the state’s history and healing this democracy.”

ARRT is a collaboration between the Black Equity Collective, the California Black Power Network, Catalyst California, Equal Justice Society, and Live Free USA, Live Free California.

Former members of the California reparations task force have partnered with AART: Loyola-Marymount clinical psychologist professor Dr. Cheryl Grills; Oakland-based civil rights attorney Lisa Holder; Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis, chair of the Department of Geography at the University of California Berkeley and Oakland-based attorney Donald Tamaki.

“We absolutely are (in support of direct-cash payments),” Woodson told California Black Media. “I think we got to have it all. There were multiple harms that were caused and one of them was financial and that needs to be compensated for with cash payments. And there are also systemic harms that were created. We need to change laws. We need to change how rules work because a lot of it flows out of anti-Black racism. We have to have everything because if you leave anything out it’s not for reparations.”

CBM also learned that there will be a series of listening sessions with the CLBC to help educate Californians about the reparation bills and the workings of the legislative process.

The members of the CLBC are Assemblymember Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City); Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Inglewood); Assemblymember Akilah Weber (D-La Mesa); Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles); Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Alameda); Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena); Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson); Assemblymember Corey Jackson (D-Riverside); Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D- Los Angeles); Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood); and Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles).

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