Juneteenth - A Personal Note

Juneteenth (don’t feel too bad if you’d never heard about it until recently, or if you’ve never heard about it at all!) I don’t remember having heard about it until I was around 40 years old. School had just finished for the summer, and was trying to find an activity for my children. June 14th is Flag Day in the US, so I had my kids spend the week learning about the American flag, its history, and then they baked a red white and blue pie using blueberries, strawberries and whipped cream to celebrate. I was talking to a friend of mine (who is Black) and told her how I was keeping my kids occupied that week; she paused and said, “Wouldn’t you rather have them learn about Juneteenth?” “What’s Juneteenth?”, I said. She seemed a bit exasperated with me, but showed patience as she went on to explain it. I listened, but was not at all that convinced that her suggestion would have been any better than mine! I just didn’t get it. I didn’t get the significance. We’re often slow to learn. 

So, Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865: the day the last U.S. state, Texas, acknowledged the Emancipation Proclamation, which was signed into law 30 months prior. Juneteenth was the first day in the United States when “liberty and justice for all” didn’t just mean “liberty and justice for some,” It reminds us of Dr. King’s wise words, “nobody is free until we are all free”.

Just as it took time for me to process and understand the significance of Juneteenth, it has also taken me time to process and understand the connection between the organization that I founded and lead in Haiti, and the freedom of black people in America. Haiti is the only country established as a result of a successful rebellion of enslaved people. Enslaved people fought hard for their freedom from one of the strongest colonial oppressors. They won their freedom but have been penalized for that victory ever since. Penalized to the extent of having to pay France the equivalent of $21 billion dollars for France and the slaveholder’s loss of property. 

Debt laden, the fledgling Republic did not finish paying off their debt until 1947, 143 years after they won their freedom. Their freedom evolved into an enslavement of chronic poverty. Enslaved black people in the United States fought hard alongside the Union army, certain that they would have earned their freedom in the end. Only to experience, not the freedom they had dreamt about, but to see that their enslavement had only evolved into a chronic exclusion from participating in the wealth that their labor had created, and in fact, being excluded from creating wealth in their own right.  France lost the ability to create wealth from the people it had enslaved, and made them pay for it. The United States lost the ability to create more wealth from the people it had enslaved. We’re still paying for it.

So for Juneteenth this year, I celebrate the bravery, resiliency, and power of those who were enslaved and fought every day for their freedom. May we all be as bold to stand against oppression and stand for what is right. Our mission at Share Hope is to do whatever we can to say; “nobody is free until we are all free”.

-Cynthia Petterson, Co-Founder + President Share Hope