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Cary Clack: Celebrate family, traditions, freedom
: June 18, 2011
This day, June 19, or — as it's more lovingly embraced — Juneteenth — is a day unique to itself and the culmination of other days of celebration. It's New Year's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve joyously rolled into one.
On June 19, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation that President Abraham Lincoln had signed was 2 years, 6 months and 18 days old when Union Gen. Gordon Granger sailed into Galveston Bay to read the government order freeing Texas' 200,000 slaves. By then, Lincoln was dead.
Granger wasn't dispatched to Galveston Bay in a timely manner, but he got there, and the news he brought was like Christmas because of the great gift wrapped in it.
It was like New Year's Eve because of the celebration it ignited.
It was like Mother's Day and Father's Day because newly free parents began looking for their children and children for their parents.
It was like New Year's Day because it signaled a new beginning.
It was like the Fourth of July because Frederick Douglass was right when he said that the original Fourth of July meant nothing to American slaves because they weren't declared free. For Texas slaves, the Emancipation Proclamation was their Declaration of Independence and Juneteenth the day they began to discover new meaning and inclusion in July 4.
And it was like Thanksgiving because the God of their weary years, the God of their silent tears, had finally delivered them this way to freedom.
Yet as much as Juneteenth is about freedom, it's also about family. Many African American family reunions are held around Juneteenth because the first thing slaves did upon learning that they were free was to go search for the families that had been brutally separated from them.
This weekend, families and friends will reunite in San Antonio and small towns such as Nixon, Schulenburg, Luling, Gonzales, Seguin and Victoria just as they will gather across the state and throughout the nation where, over generations, Texans have carried the traditions of Juneteenth with them.
They will eat and drink heartily, and one drink that will be consumed by the gallons is red soda water. For reasons that have never been properly documented or explained, red soda water has become a part of Juneteenth. We're not talking about a specific flavor here but a color. Whether it's strawberry, Nehi, Fanta, cream or Big Red — if it's red soda water, it's gone.
Properly fueled, celebrants will play baseball, shoot hoops, play dominos, tell stories, and dance and mellow out to R&B, blues, jazz, hip-hop and country.
Before the day is done, the Electric Slide will break out and the young kids will be joined by Uncle Dude and Big Mama — every African American family has a Big Mama.
Late in the night, as the music and laughter begin to fade, a front porch or a folding chair in a yard or a park will find a sleepy-eyed child cuddled in the arms of Big Mama or Uncle Dude who will tell that child stories about who he is and where he comes from.
In the voices of Big Mama and Uncle Dude, the child will begin to hear other voices rising from the past and will come to understand that Juneteenth is more than red soda water and the Electric Slide.
He'll learn that it's about family and legacy and keeping them alive through stories. He'll begin to think about what it means to be free.
All of us who celebrate today should take at least 10 minutes to imagine being a slave in Galveston on that first Juneteenth, knowing the brutality of our lives and hearing someone say, finally, “You're free.”
Try to imagine that joy. Now what?
Cary Clack's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. To leave a message, call 210-250-3486 or email at email@example.com