Finding Joy and Resistance Today

Happy Juneteenth everybody . This is the day that commemorates when US federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in eighteen sixty five to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people were freed. Now, mind you, this was a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation . Since then, juneteenth has been celebrated all over the country, especially in Texas and across the South , where Juneteenth parades, cookouts, festivals and pageants happen every year. Two weeks from now, there is another bigger freedom celebration that I know you're familiar with, the fourth of July. Two holidays, two weeks apart, two separate timelines of freedom in this country . And already you can throw a rock and hit ten America two hundred and fifty campaigns. There are both nonpartisan and deeply partisan events dedicated to America's semi quincentennial. In addition to America two hundred and fifty, President Trump signed an executive order to create Freedom two hundred fifty, an organization adding UFC matches, a concert series, and even a grand prix to the celebration. Still, all of this festivity can't help but feel strange to me. For generations, Black Americans who celebrate june team have felt this tension between these two holidays. They represent two very different ideals of what it means to be free in this country. To help me work through that tension, I'm here with the chair of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, Dr. Kell y Carter Jackson. Kelly, welcome back to It's Binn Ainute. Hey there . Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Lewis, and you're listening to It's Bin A minute from NPR , a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident . Okay , so there are going to be some people who are coming into this conversation without any real knowledge about juneteenth, even though it has been made a federal holiday. And I will admit I did not grow up celebrating juneha at all in the North. It wasn't really a part of my family's traditions at all . So even when it became a federal holiday, there was a lot of things that I learned about that were kind of new to me. You're not alone . Yeah, I'm just saying I'm like, you can't make the assumption. All black people know and know everything about june. But I wonder what did Juneteenth mean to you as a younger person ? Well, I started had experience a little bit similar to you. I was raised in Illinois, so we did not celebrate june, but I did my last high school years in Texas. And so when I moved to Texas, specifically Houston in Texas, there were june celebrations everywhere. I feel like there's always a major parade, there's always a cookout, there's always a church performance , there is just an extravaganza, if you will, of activities. It's a good time. I mean, it's the time you'll see like black men on horseback riding downtown through the city. Like the amount of activities that you can take in is just kind of endless. And so getting caught up in that celebration and caught up on the history of it was something that was kind of transformative for me in high school because it happened when I could like understand it, you know? It made sense to me why we were celebrating. That's so cool. That is actually a very unique experience, yeah, to so deeply understand both sides of the coin. That's so interesting . Now I'll say this, whether you celebrate junehr or not, many Black Americans feel some tension around the fourth of July, also known as independence day. From what? From who 's free, debatable this tension black Americans feel about the Fourth of July goes back to before emancipation. The abolitionist Frederick Douglass had thoughts about this in his eighteen fifty two speech, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July ? What comes up when you think about this speech and when you think about that moment in time? Yeah, it's so funny. I was in DC, I think last summer and staying at a hotel and they had these like june flags and pins and they said happy free ish day and it was like the idea that like you know freedom Day it's, complicated . And I think no one points out sort of the hypocrisy and the duality of that better than Douglas. I mean, Frederick Douglass is just he gives bars when he gives this speech. And Douglas is like, listen, your fourth of July celebrations, that's cute. But what does it mean to people who are enslaved? What does that mean for black Americans? Does this even apply to us? And at the time , you know, black people were not legally citizens of the United States. It would take another ten years or so years before that happens . So the speech that Douglas is giving really points this out and makes clear that America is not as free, equal, and democratic as it claims to be. Okay, I wonder what parallels do you see between the culture of America at the time that Frederick Douglass was giving this speech eighteen fifty two and the present day . Oh , man. I mean, I see so many parallels. One in particular that stands out Douglas in eighteen fifty two is really speaking at the , I would say, sort of height of the fugitive slave law. This was a law that basically said if you were an enslaved person and you ran away, that slave holders could go out and seek you and retrieve you and h ire other people to essentially snatch you back into slavery. And so all during out this moment, all throughout the north , black people are on high alert because slave catchers are out sort of like ice, snatching people off the streets, picking them up, throwing them in jail, throwing them in these holding pens, sending them back to slavery. Even if you were born in freedom, you felt like your life was at risk. You felt like you could be easily kidnapped and disposed of and sent to slavery for the rest of your life. So this is a really politically tenuous moment. You've got South which is constantly sort of pushing to have more and more when it comes to slavery . And it's only a few years later in which you have the outbreak of the Civil War , but the eighteen fifties are one of the most violent decades leading up to the Civil War that I can think of. And so you think about present day, you think about ice, you think about the rolling back of black rights or rights in general , there's a lot of resonance there. There's many aspects of the speech that could be written and said today and feel right in place . Huh. Turning back to june for a moment and thinking what that might feel like or look like this year. I mean, juneteenth, you know, as we discussed is sometimes known as Freedom Day . What are we really celebrating when we talk about celebrating the freedom of black Americans? You know, it's so complicated because on one hand there is something to celebrate. I mean, for enslaved people who found their freedom on june nineteenth and eighteen sixty five, this was a day that people were going to pause and people were going to say, but for this moment we celebrate. For this moment we find joy . But it was clear that this was not an end, a moment of completion or a moment of mission accomplished. I like to say there's a difference between sort of liberation and freedom. I think liberation is the act of like being released from something, being freed or relinquished from something , but freedom and self is how you live your life day in and day out. And freedom is not something that black people have been able to completely realize. Liberation, yes, but freedom, I put a look at asterix. I put asterix on it . That's such a good delineation. I want to throw another word into the mix Independence, the fourth of July is typically called independence day before it's two hundred tieth anniversary, the White House is in partnership with private organizations for a group of events called Freedom two hundred fifty What do you think of that change in name , especially when these holidays , you know, june , AKA Freedom Day and the Fourth of July are so close together. What do you think about that? Oh man, you know, I keep coming back to this quote by the rapper Jay Cole, where he says, The good news is you've come a long way. The bad news is you went the wrong way . And I think about I think about this moment a lot because in some ways the, good news is yes,, two hundred and fifty years we've come a long way. And it's like, where are we right now? Like we are nowhere , nowhere where I want to be, I will say. And I think this sort of, again, duplicity of like celebr ating and commemorating is so complicated depending on who you are. We're going to take a quick break, but first, if you're a long t limisteen er or brand new to its bit a minute, be sure to come back every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday for brand new episodes. And did you know you can make it even easier to get new episodes by hitting the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app . Whether you're a new friend or a loyal bestie, join the team by subscribing today . Coming up after the break. I do have to go back to the idea of the American Revolution and how in a lot of ways, you know, I argue that the American Revolution is actually not that revolutionary . Stick around . Pointing out that partisan moment is very key to kind of, I think, talking through not just now, but also another point in history that I want to chat with you about. I mean, there's been some incredible writing and reporting that compares this current cultural and political moment , you know, to the civil rights era, even the Jim Crow South , but you argue that the real moment of reflection about what freedom means exists in the Reconstruction era , which also I'm like, I smell what you stepping in with this , but I want to hear more from you about it. And please like walk the listener through that. Yeah . I'm going to try not to be too academic, but I do have to go back to the idea of the American Revolution and how in a lot of ways, you know, I argue that the American Revolution is actually not that revolutionary. What I do think of as a very pivotal moment in the founding of our nation is reconstruction. I see reconstruction as the ultimate rebirth of American progress because it is in that moment that you get the dismantling of the institution of slavery . You get black people becoming citizens for the first time. You get the fifteenth Amendment which enfranchises black men and gives them the ability to be able to vote. You get the first public schools in this moment. You get the first public health systems in this moment. America is being drastically transformed . And to me, it's a much more fruitful moment to sort of chew on, not just in all of the liberation and freedom that is sort of trying to unfold , but also in the intense backl ash to that moment, that there is a real resistance to black freedom and to the idea of what it means to be an empowered black person in this country . And I think some of the reasons that we keep coming back to this moment is because for me, reconstruction is not a failure as it has been coined through like the Dunning School and the way that early historians sort of saw. it It's really what Eric Foner calls this unfinished revolution. The work is incomplete. And it's a work that we keep trying to navigate and struggle through, and we have yet to sort of realize it. And so I think there's just so much that is fruitful about reconstruction , not just in how far we have come, but in like what are the ways we are still repeating some of the same violent racist behav ior and that's made so evident by everything that is going on in our current moment . Well, I'm really glad that you brought up reconstruction and in this way because it's directly related to like another historical period that to me is very clearly resonating in today's politics, which is the redemption. Redemption is what, you know, historians call the period where conservative southern Democrats sought to violently over throw reconstruction and roll back , you know, this post emancipation progress for Black Americans. Like i. e. like them actually having some rights and not living enslavement, right? I mean, this is the historical moment where we get the Ku Klux Klan showing up at the polls and disenfranchising black voters. Like I wonder do you see a connection between that moment in our current moment? Oh, absolutely. I mean, just look at the political landscape and look at gerrymandering and look at, you know, the recent Supreme Court judgment that basically is going to disenfranchise a lot of black voters throughout the South and remove their representation. I mean, you think about what reconstruction did, especially towards the tail end of the nineteenth century , you had at the height of reconstruction, almost two thousand black elect ed officials, black people serving in the U. S. House of Representatives, they were senators, they were local elected officials serving as like sheriffs, school superintendents, town councilmen, you name it, black people had political influence for the first time. And within about a span of twenty five, maybe thirty years , you have zero black representation. I think the last black elected official resigns or steps back from his role in nineteen oh one. And that's a real deep retrenchment. And my fear is that we replicate some of that by removing black elected officials by taking away their districts, by taking away their ability for black people to have political power under the guise of Republican versus Democrat. And that's the moment I feel like we are having right now. There's also like a vein underneath all of this too that like the new world where things are being recategorized maybe people who previously didn't have as many rights are gaining more rights . If you think about life and the resources needed to have a high quality of life as like a zero sum game as like a finite pie , other people gaining rights might make you feel like you are automatically losing them. There's a real fear there in these southern redeemers, these southern Democrats spec during the Redemption that feels very akin to a lot of political and cultural messaging that I feel like is very prevalent right now. The idea that that feels threatening to some people who want to go back to the . Maybe they want to redeem the country or maybe they want to make it great again. I've noticed that there is some of that lurking around as well that I have been thinking about a lot. Yeah. And you know, I push back hard on that idea because when you think about reconstruction, what black leadership did is it actually made life better for all Americans, not just Black Americans. So when you think about the first public schools, right? Black children and white children are benefiting that. All children can go to school for the first time. When you think about public health, all people can have access to public health in a way that curb diseases and plagues and outbreaks that we never saw before . So there really is this myth , this idea that if I have something you can't have it to, if I'm able to gain freedom or rights, it always comes at the expense of your freedom and rights . And that's absolutely untrue. If your goal is white supremacy, right? If your goal is dominance , then absolutely it's a threat to you because your power is dependent upon the hoarding of resources and your power is dependent upon the exclus ion of others. But if you want a world that is based on an egalitarian society , we don't have really good models of what does it look like to have equality? What does it look like for everyone to sort of have their needs met? Because when we get close to that, people start to get clutchy. People start to get, you know, very defensive their position or their status or their ability to maintain power . There's a lot going on, a lot floating in the air, a lot of the water right now . All that being said , how will you celebrate june teenth this year ? As somebody who kind of did, but kind of didn't grow up with it. I'm very curious . I'm very curious what your what your vibe is. Well, a good part of my day is actually doing things like this. I've been podcasting , which is work that I enjoy, and I love being able to sort of like magnify as much as I can the history of june. That's my role as a historian. But personally speaking, I do a couple things. I celebrate with my kids. We always barbecue, cook out, we eat lots of red food, which is part of the tradition. We have watermelon and strawberries and cherries that make a red velvet cake. And make a beet cornbread that's basically corn yellow, traditional cornbread. How does it come out pink? It comes out actually red. The beets make it bright red . And there's if you can stand it a little bourbon in there too. It's a good recipe. It's a good recipe. But we celebrate and we have a good time. And then the next day I'm throwing a garden party for all of my closest girlfriends and we get together and we just celebrate feeling soft and being black women who want to have just a moment of joy. It's something I did last year and I'm doing it again this year and it's been a lot of fun . Just being able to be with my girlfriends, gather people in my backyard , drink some champagne, and eat some good food and like love and affirm each other. It's just been beautiful. , A thaths so sound lovely. You wanna come and come. I have to get in my car and drive on up there. Bring your florals I gotta get some florals. I gotta get on that level. I gotta get on that level. You've given me so much inspiration for how to think about this holiday this time of year and also how to find some way to celebrate it. I strongly encourage people to find a moment of reprieve, especially black people, to find a moment of joy to really take a beat and make space for that. I know that things are not great in society, but part of our resistance is fighting for joy. And so even if it'ss just a few hour if it's half a day, if it's all day , take it, seize it because tomorrow is not promised. You are absolutely right about that one . Wow, Kelly, I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you , it's my pleasure. Happy Juneteenth. Yes, happy june. That was chair of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, Dr. Kelly Carter Jackson. This episode of It's Bit Amin was produced by Cory Antonio Rose , Liam McBain. This episode was edited by Nina Potuk. Engineering support came from Josephine Neoni. Our supervising producer is Sheriff Vincent. Our executive producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VPA programming is Yolanda Sangueni. All right, that's all for this episode of It's Bitter Minute from NPR. I'm Brittney Luis. Talk soon