Juneteenth

I don't know when I first learned about Juneteenth, but I'm thinking it was likely twenty years ago when Ralph Ellison's novel, Juneteenth, was published posthumously. 

There really wasn't much by way of Black history taught when I was growing up. We definitely learned about George Washington Carver, scientist and Tuskegee professor known - at least in our history books - for experiments with peanuts. 

But our history books were lacking in general. In the 1950's and early 1960's, when I was in parochial grammar school, our textbooks were focused through a Catholic lens. The Catholic focus was most obvious (or glaring or absurd) when it came to history. 

I don't remember if we studied any world history during grammar school, but American history was definitely skewed.

In our reading, the most important actors, the only ones worth caring about, were the Catholics. 

Catholic Christopher Columbus, sent on his not-so-merry way by a Catholic king to discover us. 

Sure there were Pilgrims, but they were nothing but a bunch of stay-put bores. All they gave us was Thanksgiving. Compare their hanging about, stirring only to fight pitched battles with Native Americans, and cook turkey come November, to the derring-do of the explorers. 

Vasco de Gama. Ponce de Leon. Jacques Cartier. Louis Joliet. Pere Marquette, who was best of all: priest and explorer. And what could be more exhilarating than following the path of Junipero Serra as he established all those missions in California.

Founding Fathers, ptooey! We all knew that the most important man to sign the Declaration of Independence was Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Never heard of him? Did you go to Wattsamatta U? Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the only Catholic to add his John Hancock to the D of I.

Speaking of fathers, the Father of the U.S. Navy? John Barry - a Taig straight out of County Wexford. (The church I grew up in had spectacular stained glass windows which weren't dedicated to saints, but to important Catholics in American history. John Barry was right up there.)

And so what if Roger Taney was a cadaverous old git who, as a Supreme Court Justice, wrote the execrable Dred Scott Decision. Hey, he was one of ours! (The Supremes, of course, made up for lost Catholic time. Today's court has a Catholic majority: Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kavanaugh. And maybe Gorsuch (raised Catholic but attends an Episcopal church with his Episcopalian wife). 

We learned about Al Smith, the first Catholic to run for President. And we lived history when JFK ran and won.

What with all this concentration on Catholics, there was just no room for learning anything about Black history.

In high school, our textbooks were mainly secular, and a bit more Black history slipped in: Frederick Douglass. Harriet Tubman. The Tuskegee Airmen. 

Did we read any Black authors in high school? I seem to remember James Baldwin. But that's about it. 

In college I read W.E.B. Dubois.

But Juneteenth?

Nah, never heard of it.

But what a glorious day to celebrate - the day when the Emancipation Proclamation finally finished up emancipating the slaves, when those enslaved in the most remote of the slave states, Texas were free at last.

I wish it were more widely celebrated, more widely known. 

But maybe our Black fellow citizens are just as happy to have it on the down low, so that they can enjoy it all on their own, without others grabbing at it an co-opting it.

I hope that this year's Juneteenth celebration is joyous and peaceful. That they don't let the Trump campaign's hideous and racist decision to hold their first post-COVID rally on June 19th in Tulsa (or all places) put a damper on it. (Yes, I know that the rally was moved to June 20th, but I read that Trump advisors were well aware of the symbolism of holding that first rally on Juneteenth, in Tulsa - the scene, in 1921, of the worst incident of racial violence in American history - and were surprised by the backlash that forced them back off a bit.)

Anyway, wishing a wonderful Juneteenth to the Black community. And wishing that it gets included in all history books. It's a lot more important that Charles Carroll of Carrollton.