A Juneteenth Message from CEO Kyra Kyles
Famed elocutionist and political icon Frederick Douglass once famously, and rhetorically, asked: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?"
In 2022, we could pose a similar question: What, to the American public, is Juneteenth?
I’m saddened, but not surprised to see the holiday go so rapidly from recognition to being ripped off with ill-advised ice cream flavors and merchandise; cringe-inducing cafeteria menus and an unconscionable trademarking attempt.
Only established as a federal holiday last year despite beginnings that trace back to 1866, Juneteenth has never enjoyed the national awareness of July 4.
I didn’t even know the story behind the holiday that began in Galveston, Texas until adulthood, despite having an educator mother who was committed to, and diligent about, increasing both me and my sister’s knowledge of Black history from an early age. She taught us age-appropriate lessons about the Middle Passage, Jim Crow laws, school desegregation, and the Great Migration. My mother told me that she never learned about Juneteenth growing up in Mississippi, despite her grandmother's tireless work as a civil rights activist. To my knowledge, nor did my late father, an avid reader and history buff who grew up in Alabama.
In truth, it should not have been left to my parents, grandparents or great grandparents to share this part of our nation’s past. At no point, and not even in one of my high school history class, no matter how advanced, was Juneteenth or its significance even mentioned in passing.
How could I and so many other descendants of those who were forcefully brought here by the Middle Passage have spent our childhoods surrounded by sparklers, red-white-and-blue banners and fireworks celebrating Uncle Sam be exposed to little or no information about the day when our ancestors were formally “freed” some two-and-a-half years past the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation?
The answer is simple: The story, like others in our collective history, has been suppressed.
Storytellers hold an incredible amount of power and influence in our society. That is one of the many reasons we at YR Media invest so deeply in the younger generations sharing the perspective and history as it is happening around them. When they hold the mic, the pen, the keyboard or the camera, we have fewer reasons to fear gaping holes in our history and the erasure of underrepresented voices and experiences.
In honor of Juneteenth, and in lieu of commercialism or another “off” day, let’s instead make space to support our emerging truth tellers. That is one way this country can finally do justice to a holiday that– unlike its star-spangled counterpart– is a celebration of freedom for all.
