Editorial: Unchained and Free - at last

Juneteenth is a designated holiday that raises a philosophical question about the very nature of freedom. At what point did slaves in the South legally become free — when their shackles were legally removed, or only when they were physically removed? Is a man free if he escapes but is still considered a slave by the laws of the day? What if the law says he is free but that information is kept from him?

On May 23, 1861, three slaves arrived at Fort Monroe seeking asylum. Their escape prompted Union General Benjamin Butler's landmark decision that if slaves were indeed property under the law, then escaped slaves who reached Fort Monroe would be declared "contraband of war" and not returned to their masters. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862. Its directive to free all Confederate slaves went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863. The first public reading of that document in the South occurred beneath an oak tree that still stands today on the campus of Hampton University.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery, was formally ratified by the required three-quarters of the states on Dec. 6, 1865 — though somehow, Kentucky did not ratify it until 1976 and Mississippi not until 1995, and even then, because of a clerical error, it was not formally certified in Mississippi until 2013.

And then there is June 19, 1865 — the day a Union general stood on the balcony of an opulent villa in Galveston, Texas, and read General Order No.3, announcing "an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves." It was the first they had heard of the Emancipation Proclamation.

A century and a half later, this is recognized as the moment when the slaves were truly freed, and when our nation was freed from the self-imposed stain of that indefensible institution.

True, there are other dates that would serve the purpose as well, but why quibble? It is clear as an unmuddied stream that this is an event to celebrate, and June 19 is as good a date as any.

We celebrate the Fourth of July, and rightly so, as the anniversary of the date that our Founding Fathers declared independence from the British throne in order to establish a new land where "all men are created equal." So why is it so difficult to muster equal pride in the date when we took this major step toward living up to those ideals?

Annual Juneteenth celebrations began popping up in Texas, first spontaneously and later with more organization. In the 20th century, as African-Americans migrated out of the South, the concept of Juneteenth spread around the country but was still largely limited to regional pockets of recognition.

Pretty much, it's still there today, and that's too bad.

Forty-five states and the District of Columbia recognize Juneteenth as a ceremonial holiday, but we question how many Americans could actually identify the date or explain its significance. Far fewer, we fear, than those who could identify the date when a varmint in Pennsylvania is supposed to stick his head out of the ground and give a weather forecast.

Juneteenth deserves better.

It deserves federal recognition and an education campaign to let Americans know why it is celebrated. Over the past 20 years, both houses of Congress have made half-hearted attempts to formalize a Juneteenth holiday, but none has come to fruition.

Slavery is an inescapable part of our nation's history. We celebrate America in a variety of ways through specific holidays. An annual Juneteenth recognition would honor those slaves who persevered and then took advantage of their freedom, as well as those who died as martyrs. It would pay tribute to the men and women who dedicated their lives to the abolitionist cause.

Just as the Fourth of July marks the date when we proclaimed to the world that all men are created equal, Juneteenth would recognize the date when we began to actually mean it.

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