“The people are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, become that between employer and hired labor. The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
– General Order No. 3, Issued by Union General Gordon Granger on June 19th, 1865, in Galveston, Texas
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did, indeed, help secure freedom for thousands of enslaved people. But, did the Emancipation Proclamation actually free any enslaved people? It may surprise you that the question is debated. Let me explain why.
Kelly Hancock, Manager for Education and Programs in the American Civil War Museum, writes …
“Some historians claim that it only declared slaves free in areas where Lincoln lacked the power to free them. It is true that the proclamation exempted the Border States, as well as Tennessee and areas of Louisiana and Virginia occupied by Federal troops.
“However, this observation ignores the fact that the U.S. Army occupied parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Virginia, which were not exempted and where enslaved people did immediately become free.”
(Kelly Hancock. “Myths & Misunderstandings: The Emancipation Proclamation.” The American Civil War Museum. September 12, 2017.)
In truth, the Emancipation Proclamation was the result of a multiracial, concerted effort of men and women who bore witness to the truth about slavery. Abolitionists like Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth held a coherent moral framework that condemned the sin of slavery while affirming the equality of humanity.
Abraham Lincoln, though full of political courage, lacked the moral animating impulse of these abolitionists. While Lincoln’s perspective on slavery was evolving at the time of his death, full citizenship for the formerly enslaved and their descendants remained a dream.
Jonathan L. Walton – Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in FAS, professor of religion and society at Harvard Divinity School, and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church – explains …
“Thus the Emancipation Proclamation, despite its significance, lacked the moral foci of its abolitionist forebears. Slavery so polluted the air of this nation with the noxious gases of race, gender, and class hierarchies that we continue to ingest its harmful social toxins 150 years later.
“Only a sincere and sustained moral defense of the equality of all people can help to purify our nation and provide this wonderful document with the ethical imperative of which its name signifies. This document is a powerful statement, but by no means the last word on the quest for human freedom.”
(Colleen Walsh. “The Emancipation Proclamation now.” The Harvard Gazette. February 04, 2013.)
To understand fully the impact of emancipation legislation in Texas in 1865, one must have knowledge of the events associated with Texas and so-called “Juneteenth.”
Juneteenth (Also Known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day)
Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) is a holiday celebrated with increasing official recognition on June 19 across the United States. It marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed.
The troops’ arrival came a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House two months earlier in Virginia, but slavery had remained relatively unaffected in Texas until U.S. General Gordon Granger stood on Texas soil and read General Orders No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
While the order was critical to expanding freedom to enslaved people, the racist language used in the last sentences foreshadowed that the fight for equal rights would continue.
Elizabeth Nix, Associate Professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Baltimore and American Studies graduate of Yale University, explains …
“In reality, the Emancipation Proclamation – issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free ” – but it
didn’t instantly free any enslaved people. The proclamation only applied to places under Confederate control and not to slave-holding border states or rebel areas already under Union control. However, as Northern troops advanced into the Confederate South, many enslaved people fled behind Union lines.
“In Texas, slavery had continued as the state experienced no large-scale fighting or significant presence of Union troops. Many enslavers from outside the Lone Star State had moved there, as they viewed it as a safe haven for slavery.
“After the war came to a close in the spring of 1865, General Granger’s arrival in Galveston that June signaled freedom for Texas’s 250,000 enslaved people. Although emancipation didn’t happen overnight for everyone – in some cases, enslavers withheld the information until after harvest season – celebrations broke out among newly freed Black people, and Juneteenth was born. That December, slavery in America was formally abolished with the adoption of the 13th Amendment.
“The year following 1865, freedmen in Texas organized the first of what became the annual celebration of 'Jubilee Day' on June 19. In the ensuing decades, Juneteenth commemorations featured music, barbecues, prayer services and other activities, and as Black people migrated from Texas to other parts of the country the Juneteenth tradition spread.”
(Elizabeth Nix. “What Is Juneteenth?” History.com. April 20, 2021.)
As American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. explains in his article for The Root, the ex-Confederate mayor of Galveston openly disregarded Granger’s orders and forced freed people back to work.
And, those who acted on the news did so at their peril.
Gates writes …
“So what happened to the formerly enslaved men and women who weren’t forced to continue working? According to Elizabeth Hayes Turner’s essay in 'Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas' and Leon F. Litwack’s research in 'Been in the Story So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery,' legally free Black men and women continued to be terrorized, shot, and hanged for minor 'offenses' like swimming in the river or expecting fair treatment from their employers.
“As quoted in Litwack's book, former slave Susan Merritt recalled, 'You could see lots of niggers hangin' to trees in Sabine bottom right after freedom, 'cause they cotch 'em swimmin' 'cross Sabine River and shoot 'em.' In one extreme case, according to Hayes Turner, a former slave named Katie Darling continued working for her mistress another six years (She 'whip me after the war jist like she did 'fore,' Darling said).”
(Henry Louis Gates Jr. “What Is Juneteenth?” The Root. June 17, 2013.)
Importance of Juneteenth
Juneteenth is a milestone representing resistance and resilience of Blacks in America. It is celebrated as the day Black communities in Texas, and across the United States, embraced their rights as Americans and declared their intention to claim those rights, despite all opposition and obstacles. And they continue to do so today. Juneteenth is an active recognition of the ongoing fight to achieve freedom and equality in the United States.
Jefferson Brant aptly addresses the importance of Juneteenth in The Episcopal News of Jacksonville, Florida …
“Juneteenth represents not just a celebration of the emancipation of approximately 4,000,000 Black human beings who were in a status of bondage at the outset of the Civil War, but also a recognition of the active efforts of African Americans in bringing about emancipation and abolition.
“The movement to abolish slavery existed in one form or another since the first recorded entry of enslaved Africans into what is now the United States in 1619 … Whether through the work of abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and others who wrote and spoke extensively on the evils of slavery, armed uprisings such as the Nat Turner Revolt in 1831, or the efforts of countless enslaved individuals attempting to resist or flee slavery over the years, it is clear that abolition was a goal long pursued by so many African Americans long before the first shots of the Civil War were fired in 1861.
“Juneteenth should also be seen as an acknowledgment – then and now – of the nearly 200,000 African Americans who enlisted and fought to end slavery and preserve the Union during the Civil War, as well as the approximately 40,000 among that number who lost their lives in doing so. Though those individuals endured many levels of racism and segregation within their own ranks, their contributions to the Union victory and the ultimate success of the abolitionist effort were essential …
“Indeed, emancipation and abolition were not acts of salvation, but were efforts long sought and fought hard for by literally hundreds of thousands of African Americans by the end of the Civil War. Juneteenth commemorates those accomplishments and sacrifices.”
(Jefferson Brant. “The Importance of Juneteenth.” The Episcopal News. June 19, 2020.)
In many ways, Juneteenth represents how freedom and justice in the U.S. has always been delayed for Blacks. Ironically, while Juneteenth has become the most prominent Emancipation Day holiday in the country, it commemorates a smaller moment that remains relatively obscure.
A Poem In Commemoration of Juneteenth
Poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. He was born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the Civil War, Dunbar attended Central High School (Dayton, Ohio) and then Howard University. He wrote about African-American struggles and life.
“We Wear the Mask” is Dunbar's reaction to the experience of being black in America in the late 19th century, following the Civil War – a period when life seemed to have improved for black Americans yet in reality was still marked by intense racism and hardship.
Dunbar compares surviving the pain of oppression to wearing a mask that hides the suffering of its wearer while presenting a more joyful face to the world. All that said, the poem itself does not specifically mention race; its message is applicable to any circumstance in which marginalized people are forced to present a brave face in order to survive in an unsympathetic, prejudiced society.
We Wear the Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
– Paul Laurence Dunbar
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