| Proclamations (official formal public announcements) have been handed out, down, and around since mankind could speak, read, write, and find a distribution method for communicating new changes to old rules. From town criers to stone tablets to papyrus scrolls, to printing presses, and more recently, high speed bandwidths via the Internet, the methods have changed but the expected result is the same—compliance.
The Emancipation Proclamation may be the simplest yet most profound “new rule” in the history of our species. It basically said let freedom ring for all people of America, and thus removed the shackles of slavery that had turned into gold bracelets for the Aryan élite prior to the Civil War. Regardless of the political reasoning behind the controversial edict (and be sure there were some), the measure was beneficial to some and detrimental to others. And the effects were yet far in the future!
It’s been 144 years since the official announcement was made by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. However, not all states jumped on the band wagon. It took more than two years for the news to arrive in Galveston, Texas, via Union General Gordon Granger and his accompanying North-side enforcement troops. When the slaves heard the news of their free status, they reacted by instigating the oldest known celebration commemorating the long overdue proof that “all men are created equal.” Thus, Juneteenth, or in calendar terms June 19, 1865, became the national holiday for the “exploration and celebration of diversity and African-American history.”
It has taken approximately seven generations for Afro-Americans to glean the crumbs of the white man’s table and to rebuild black culture within the invisible but alien walls of its capturing country. Quite an accomplishment, considering that most were stolen from their native lands, floated for months across salty oceans, dumped ashore in chains, auctioned to highest bidders, and sentenced to life at hard labor with no pay.
Entire families were ripped apart, and victims of all ages were often forced to work from sun up to sun down under the relentless whip of the Master. Women were slightly more valued due to their ability to bare the owner’s or fellow slaves’ illegitimate children, thereby providing additional workers for the fields, tending livestock, or maintaining the households of their keepers.
Admitting to my own prejudices is rather embarrassing, but it seems that the black women were the pillars of what little black society was allowed to survive. Although the men and boys became the human machines that fed the hoppers of the physically inferior white man, the women were machines and moms—much like today’s super women in all cultures. They were responsible for providing food, clothing, health care, education, and spiritual values to the remnant survivors, yet had little access to resources for fulfilling their roles—much like today’s subjugated women in many cultures.
When I was writing Locker Room to Boardroom, the life story of a black pro-football player, I was often the only white person in a room full of his black friends, business associates, neighbors, and potential buyers of the book. At first apprehensive, I quickly warmed to the culture’s hospitable nature and fit right in. Actually, I was amazed at their sense of community, pride in appearance and social skills, discipline and respect among family members, and dedication to educational achievement—all while exhibiting an enviable, collective sense of humor.
But my empathy for blacks began many years before the book was written—perhaps when I was about eleven years old? Maybe I was working on a history paper or a Sunday school lesson or something that day. I have no idea how or why these thoughts came through my brain and into my pencil and onto the unlined, now yellowed paper from which the following words were copied. But I do remember the breeze that came through the window on that hot summer day in my parents’ bedroom—the only window in our house that faced south. Whatever, here’s how I felt as a child:
“Black or white? Why should it make any difference to us when it makes no difference at all to our Creator? Are people humiliated when they stop to think that all humans, regardless of color, are given life from the same hand?
I have never seen a hog that turned away from a trough just because a hog of a different color decided to dine with him. Neither have I seen a person deny life because a man with black skin was created from the same hand.
Christ, though so holy, thought nothing of eating with the Publicans and sinners. I’m sure these men’s hearts were much blacker than the skins of our fellow men. Christ was not interested in what other people would say. He didn’t look at the color of their skin, but only at their heart.
The people of today determine a man’s righteousness at a glance. If his skin is a different color, he is doomed. But if his skin is the same color, alas there is hope for that man. When a man is spat upon because of his God-given color, the reproach is not against the man, but against God. We have no choice as to what color or sex or origin we would like; this has all been planned for us in advance.
If the American people would only stop and think of that statement, they would fall on their faces before God and beg forgiveness for every slighting deed or word.”
Happy “Freedom Day” to all, and may it soon be Juneteenth the world over! Let women proclaim emancipation from the ever-present, ever-tightening tentacles of physical, financial, religious, and political subjugation that continues to keep most of the world’s women and girls in paralytic slavery.
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