On Philadelphia’s famed Liberty Bell, one can find the inscription, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” The quotation comes from
the Bible
in Leviticus 25:10. That verse speaks of the Year of Jubilee, a time in ancient Israel when debts were forgiven, ancestral property returned, and slaves were freed.
It is a fit and right verse for
Juneteenth
, which we celebrate on Monday. Juneteenth only became a federal holiday in 2021, but its roots go back to the end of the American
Civil War
. It originated in Galveston, Texas, when, on June 19, 1865, the just-arrived Union army announced to the state’s 250,000 enslaved persons that they were free. Annual celebrations quickly arose within the African-American community and have continued up to the present day.
FINDING FATHERHOOD: RESILIENCY AND RESPECT TEACH CHILDREN WORTH
Making Juneteenth a national holiday does more than give official recognition to this cherished part of African-American history. It establishes a more complete picture of America’s pursuit of its ideals. In his Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln described America as a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Our founding ideals were not celebrations of a perfectly realized now. Instead, they were prescriptions, the setting of a standard by which we would measure ourselves, by which we would seek to preserve what we already had achieved and to reform where we fell short.
Juneteenth comes 14 days before July 4, the day on which we celebrate these ideals as articulated in the Declaration of Independence. That charter, Thomas Jefferson would say, described the “American mind,” providing a key to our self-understanding. This self-understanding articulated a belief in human equality, especially in the possession of natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It also posited the government’s obligation to protect that equality and to preserve those rights.
In 1776, we had taken great strides toward realizing these commitments. But we still failed miserably on the issue of race-based chattel slavery. Despite many efforts, the institution remained, receding in the North but entrenching in the South. It treated enslaved humans like animals and trained masters in the cruel arts of despotism. Historically, then, July 4 was not separated from Juneteenth by 14 days but by 89 years. They were separated, too, by immense oppression, greed, and bloodshed.
Yet, at great cost, America removed the evil of race-based slavery from our midst. The Civil War and its attending constitutional amendments cemented in practice our theoretical commitments. We further fought slavery’s lingering grip in the form of legal racial segregation. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s called us to a better fidelity — for America, as MLK said, to “live out the true meaning of its creed.”
In 1852, Frederick Douglass famously asked, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Juneteenth provides the answer. Though late in time, liberty was proclaimed to the captives. June 19th celebrates that milestone, redeeming July 4th celebrations by fulfilling its inherent promise.
Juneteenth also calls on us to continue in the spirit it shares with July 4th. We must, as Lincoln urged his hearers at Gettysburg, rededicate ourselves to the principles of Independence Day and their realization on Juneteenth.
Some have called for linking the two holidays. They have suggested calling the time between June 19th and July 4th a
“Fortnight of Freedom.”
We would do well to heed this call. Let us remember the great cost separating the two. Let us celebrate the great unity found between them. Let us spend the next two weeks proclaiming liberty to all.
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To the captive around the world, let that proclamation give hope. To the free here, let that proclamation give rise to gratitude and renewed dedication.
Adam Carrington is assistant professor of politics at Hillsdale College.
