By Anthony Sawyer, MD, MPH
Anthony Sawyer, MD, MPH is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatric Anesthesiology at Stanford University.
Yesterday was Juneteenth in the US, and I’m going to do my best to briefly reflect on what this holiday is to those who aren’t familiar with it, as well as give a little insight into my personal relationship with it. This will be far from comprehensive, and if you want to learn more on your own, I’ll recommend at the end some ways for you to do some further discovery. Full disclosure: this represents my perspective alone. Also, I really encourage you all to continue to do this discovery independently before taxing your Black colleagues to do that work for you.
The Declaration of Independence did not grant freedom to slaves, and likewise the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863, did not grant freedom to all the millions of enslaved persons in the US – at least not immediately. While some slaves were immediately freed at the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and while others escaped to freedom over time, Juneteenth – a portmanteau of “June” and “Nineteenth” – is a celebration of General Order No. 3, issued by Major General Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, proclaiming freedom for slaves in Galveston, Texas. Though the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, it took two and a half years for the meaningful implementation of this freedom, because the slaves in Galveston didn’t know they were free since the slaveowners didn’t tell them.
I’m Black. My family lineage can be traced back at least seven generations in Camden County, North Carolina. I’m a direct descendant of slaves. Many of my family members, including my grandfather Connie, were the descendants of sharecroppers, who themselves became sharecroppers because that was the natural transition for many formerly enslaved persons. Despite all of this, I didn’t learn about Juneteenth until I was an adult. While I could blame conservative policies around educational curricula in the rural South, I suspect that I am not alone, and that many of us are only becoming familiar with Juneteenth in recent years. Juneteenth did not become a federal holiday until 2021. Juneteenth wasn’t talked about when I was younger because it’s uncomfortable.
When I think about Juneteenth, I feel conflicted. I’m proud to be Black. I’m proud of the resilience that my people from around the African diaspora have demonstrated. I’m proud of the way that the Black community is influential in manners of leadership, the arts, medicine, politics, entertainment, and more. I love learning about specific Juneteenth celebrations, even those that are painful, such as eating red foods like strawberry soda and red velvet cake because they represent the blood spilled by the last enslaved people freed more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. But I’m conflicted; the truth is, Black folks in the US still aren’t free. Not really, and not completely. If I’m being honest, I believe that while we are becoming more aware of the devastating and complicated legacy of slavery and its aftermath in this country, Juneteenth celebrations outside of the Black community are mostly performative if not backed up by serious commitment to education and self-reflection, as well as the recognition that we have much more work to do to acknowledge and address systemic inequities and racism.
I honeymooned in Louisiana in January. While my husband and I certainly enjoyed our fair share of New Orleans food and music, we also took one day and drove to Whitney Plantation in Edgard. According to their website, Whitney Plantation is the only former plantation site in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on slavery. More than anything, I was struck by the sheer scale of slavery in the US, and the way that slave labor quite literally transformed the wealth of this burgeoning nation. What’s so frustrating to me is that the contributions of slaves are often ignored, and the descendants of slaveowners are still benefitting from this wealth generations later. Shirley Plantation in Hopewell, Virginia is the oldest active plantation in Virginia and the oldest family-owned business in North America, dating back to 1613, with operations starting in 1648. Descendants of this slave-owning family still live in the main house to this day; the upper floors are occupied by members of the eleventh generation of the Hill Carter family. While slavery may not formally exist in this country, its effects are all around us.
My grandfather, Connie Sawyer, Sr. had an eighth-grade education. His father, Daniel, was educated through the fourth grade. Daniel’s father Richard, my great-great-grandfather, obtained a second-grade education before fathering 15 children with his wife Jeannette. Richard Sawyer was also a sharecropper whose ancestors worked as slaves in the same fields that he worked in. Today, I have incredible privilege by virtue of my education and occupation, but I also represent the exception when it comes to Black folks in America. For many others, the opportunities I’ve had are inaccessible to them, and even for those of us who have made our way into these gilded halls, the road has not been easy. There is a reason that there are so few Black physicians compared to the number of Black folks in our communities. There is a reason that Historically Black Colleges and Universities exist. There’s a reason that separate but equal was never equal. When we think about Juneteenth, we need to consider the resilience of the Black community as well as the ways we must do more to truly see equity in our lifetime.
Juneteenth is a celebration of truth, of hope, and of progress. If you want to learn more about Juneteenth, I recommend the Smithsonian’s website as a starting point. If you are in the DC area, I highly recommend a visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I also recommend reading How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith; if you don’t have time to finish the whole thing, I recommend the chapters on Whitney Plantation and Angola State Prison. Finally, please watch a couple of videos. One is a two-minute video that features a family honoring and celebrating a loved one after he passed away. You’ll hear them singing a gospel song at his gravesite, and it’s beautiful. Along with strong families and communities, religion has often allowed Black families to survive the horrible pains of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, police brutality, and the like, because of the hope that things will be better after this life is over. The other video is a piece by spoken word artist and author Theresa tha S.O.N.G.B.I.R.D, performed at the 2019 Trumpet Awards. She demonstrates with powerful words the beauty of Blackness.