Juneteenth Truths and Lies
by Pamelagrace Beatty
There is history surrounding Juneteenth, of which little, if any, was ever taught in school. Perhaps now that the date is more nationally known, children are learning more about this date and event. However, since many of us didn’t get that opportunity when we were growing up, here is some information, and interesting facts, as well as some debunked myths. Let’s start with the myths because they are interesting!
Myth: June 19th is the day all slaves in America found out they were free.
Truth: Slaves learned at different times that they were free. The news took a while to travel all over the south. June 19th was the day the slaves and others were told that slaves had been freed in Galveston, Texas! On this date, General Gordan Granger arrived with 2,000 Federal troops and announced that the slaves had been granted their independence. General Robert E. Lee had surrendered in April of 1865 but not as far as Texas was concerned. Many slave owners had moved there with their slaves because there were relatively few battles going on there and not a large union soldier presence. The slave owners thought they would be free to continue their businesses with their 250,000 slaves.
Celebrating Juneteenth started in Texas and slowly caught on in the south. As Black people immigrated from the south in the Great Migrations, they took celebrating Juneteenth with them to other parts of the country. Ironically, in 1979, Texas became the first state to officially recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday.
Myth: The Civil War was fought to free the slaves.
Truth: Freeing the slaves was a byproduct of the civil war. Although president Lincoln did sympathize with the slaves’ plight, he did not go to war simply to free the slaves. Lincoln was determined to keep the Union intact. He was not going to let the southern states leave the union without a fight. The southern states however withdrew from the union as soon as Lincoln was elected. This started the civil war. President Lincoln was not especially harsh with the southern states regarding freeing the slaves. His plan was to have a gradual emancipation that would be complete by 1900. He also felt the slaves owners should have some form of reparation for the loss of their slaves. England had offered reparation to the slave supply ships they put out of business when England declared the slave trade illegal.
Myth: The Klu Klux Klan was started by southerners who were hostile toward Black people.
Truth: The KKK was actually started by a group of white college students as a prank on the Black folks living near their town. They knew that some of the people were superstitious, so they took advantage of this by wearing white sheets and pretending to be ghosts of soldiers who had fought in the war. They rode their horses to the homes of the folks and asked for a drink of water. They explained they had been soldiers. The pranksters had something under their sheets that they poured the “drink of water” down. They drank and drank which made the Black folks believe that they were, indeed, supernatural. The pranksters found how much fun it was to scare the people and their pranks grew more intense. Ultimately this group became the Klu Klux Klan, riding at night in sheets and scaring or threatening, and even killing Black people everywhere in the south.
Myth: Slaves were actually declared free by President Lincoln in September 1862 when he penned the Emancipation Proclamation.
Truth: Lincoln didn’t actually free all of the 4 million men, women and children held in slavery in the United States when he signed the formal Emancipation Proclamation the January, 1863. The document applied only to enslaved people in the Confederacy, and not to those in the border states that remained loyal to the Union. All slaves were freed once the 13th amendment was ratified by December 6, 1865. The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Myth: The south was devasted after the civil war and never came back to its original productivity and monetary gains.
Truth: Although the south was hit hard by the war and the southern culture changed dramatically, some of its crops recovered and continued to grow. Sales for sugar and rice were on the decline before the Civil War and continued to go down. Both cotton and tobacco made a quick comeback and continued to be strong money makers for the south, as well as wool.
Myth: The south was in dire straits after the war because there was no one to do the work. All of the freed slaves were useless. It was believed that 1) the ex-slaves would not work as free laborers. 2) Black people were ignorant and uneducable. They were inherently inferior. 3) If they got power of any sort, political or otherwise, they would overthrow those in power in the south and kill everyone in their beds!
Truth: None of this proved to be true. Black people had already proved they could learn. There were many already who were writing books and speaking out against slavery (Fredrick Douglas), writing and publishing poetry (Phyllis Wheatley 1753-1784), establishing churches, schools, and newspapers before the Civil War. Later, Black people invented machinery and other things that were valuable to Americans. During the aftermath of the Civil War, Black people proved to be reliable workers. Yes, the days of the plantation owners was over for the most part, although some of those plantations offered share cropping as an option. However, this was, in effect, another form of slavery because no matter how much the sharecroppers worked, they always owed more than they were paid, according the accounts of the plantation owner. Even being able to read, write and do math was no help to the worker in these situations. If a sharecropper, especially a Black man, argued with the outcome, that not only ended his employment but could also be the end of his life.
Myth: The South seceded over states’ rights.
Truth: Confederate states did declare the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery. An example is if a southern family wanted to take their slave cook with them on vacation to a northern state like New York, they were not allowed to do so because it was an anti-slavery state. Giving all states the right to support or not support slavery on their own would not work. The south didn’t secede over taxes and tariffs either. The south did, indeed, mainly break away over the debate of slavery. The line had been drawn and the number of states allowed to have slaves was clear. The leadership of the Union wanted to encourage more farms, with opportunities for the many immigrants coming to America. They did not want America covered with large plantations that required lots of slaves. Once the war was over, the south did fall to the hands of farmers and the aristocracy of plantation owning was gone.
Summary: Obviously the south has never gotten over the loss of their way of life. Even though many southerners were not plantation owners, raking in tons of money and living luxurious lives while the slaves toiled under the hot sun, still this was something they aspired to. After all, this was America, land of the free, with the constitutional right to pursue happiness and wealth. This was not like the countries the immigrants had come, from where the birth circumstances determined their opportunities. In America, if you worked hard enough, you could amass land and homes and leave an inheritance to your children that would keep the bounty going through the generations. The south was reluctant to let their culture go. And many still feel that way.
