Morgan State University archivist explains the significance of Juneteenth
June 19, 1865, can be described as a day of freedom. It's the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free.
"It had to take physical people to travel nearly 2,000 miles from the east coast to almost the west coast to carry the word," said Dr. Ida Jones, the Morgan State University archivist. "It wasn't simply going to be done by fiat. You almost had to wrangle people into accepting the new law of the land."
Dr. Jones said the day followed multiple African American liberation movements.
"In 1808, there was the celebration of the international slave trade," Dr. Jones said. "In the 1830s, the abolition of enslavement in English-speaking territories in the Caribbean."
Why is Juneteenth important?
Dr. Jones said Juneteenth allowed enslaved people to celebrate their freedom and their identities, being African and American.
By the 1870s, she said, Baltimore City held a parade in honor of the holiday.
"Baltimore, being the largest free antebellum pre-civil war free population, it's going to have a double celebration because they were already helping to subvert the system by eh Underground Railroad," Dr. Jones said.
How to celebrate Juneteenth
Dr. Jones said as we celebrate, it's important to party with a purpose.
"I'd encourage you to visit a museum to kind of understand the history and not be so academic and stiff, but to really kind of understand the lived experience of our freedom," she said.
Dr. Jones said Juneteenth allows everyone to understand how we got here and recognize the sacrifices for our freedom.
"We need to defend ourselves with proper intellectual nutrition, which is knowing the origin of these stories," Dr. Jones said.
Dr. Jones said learning about the history behind Juneteenth helps us to understand collective ancestry, collective sacrifice, as well as being born in this time.
"Unlike those generations prior to us, they did not have the latitude to do certain things, but they didn't see us coming," Dr. Jones said. They had generations coming who would live these wild and crazy dreams. As we party on tomorrow, or rest on tomorrow, or visit the Reginald Lewis on tomorrow... that we can actually appreciate those individuals who thought it's not robbery to think of the rest of us, to raise our consciousness to a level of being true Americans and true patriots."
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