In his Emancipation Proclamation issued on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared that all enslaved people in Confederate States as legally free. It wasn’t until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution on January 31, 1865 that emancipation became a national policy.
In the State of Texas, however, the emancipation of enslaved people took much longer.
An article in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth, noted, “Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as ‘Juneteenth,’ by the newly freed people in Texas.”
According to Juneteenth.com, “Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.”
Furthermore, “On January 1, 1980, Juneteenth became an official [Texas] state holiday through the efforts of Al Edwards, an African American state legislator. The successful passage of this bill marked Juneteenth as the first emancipation celebration granted official state recognition. Edwards has since actively sought to spread the observance of Juneteenth all across America.”
While almost every state, including Florida, recognized Juneteenth as a State Observance before his death on April 29, 2020, State Representative Al Edwards only lived to see Texas and Massachusetts declare it as official State Holidays.
On June 17, 2021, it became a federal holiday when President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
Two months earlier, North Miami Beach Criminal Commissioner Michael Joseph had already jumped on the Juneteenth bandwagon by sponsoring a Resolution to declare it as a paid holiday for City employees.
At hour 6:27:10 of the Zoom video of the April 8, 2021 Special Commission Meeting, Michael was barely intelligible for one minute and seventeen seconds as he clumsily sped through a brief history of Juneteenth, literally stumbling over the words on the page he was reading, and ending his word salad sprint by “advocating that we approve a Resolution tonight and join those communities in recognizing, uh, commemorating Juneteenth as its, uh, as a celebration of liberation and achievement for African Americans and the entire country.”
As usual, Michael Joseph couldn’t even be bothered to turn his camera on for this important Resolution, and instead, disrespectfully used his stock City photo as his Zoom avatar.
Despite his painfully obvious disinterest in this topic, after a 20 minute discussion, the Resolution passed 7-0 at nearly one o’clock in the morning.
At hour 6:58:39 of the video, after the Mayor had already adjourned the meeting, Michael flamboyantly blurted out, “You passed Juneteenth! Congratulations, everybody.”
From the peanut gallery, Criminal Commissioner Paule Villard piped in, “Congratulations, Commissioner Joseph.”
Michael shouted in response, “Congratulations to this entire City.”
Having to have the very last irrelevant word, Paule giggled stupidly and said, “Congratulations for bringing it up.”
Mercifully, the Zoom camera was turned off before their gushing lovefest continued or the childish banter would have gone on until dawn.
Yet, somehow, as they do with every other event in North Miami Beach, they made this celebratory Holiday all about them.
The actual history of the Juneteenth Holiday began nearly two and one half centuries earlier when the ancestors of today’s African Americans were sold to European slave-traders “by other Africans, usually kings or chiefs or wealthy merchants,” according to an October 12, 1995 CNN article, Researchers uncover Africans’ part in slavery. Based on the studies of University of Ghana researcher Akosua Perbi “European slave traders, almost without exception, did not themselves capture slaves.”
“But while Africans may have sold their own people into slavery,” the article explains, “researchers say the kings and chiefs had no idea of the brutality of slavery on the other side of the ocean. If they had, they say, maybe the slave trade across the Atlantic would never have grown so huge, or lasted for so many years.”
Needless to say, the first enslaved Africans who arrived in the British Colony of Virginia on August 20, 1619 did not come to the Colonies on their own free will, but were forced into servitude.
Although Congress abolished the slave trade in 1807, by that time there were already over 1.9 million enslaved descendants from Africa since the children of slaves automatically became enslaved themselves. The captivity of black slaves in this country alone lasted 246 years until the first Juneteenth in 1865.
Nevertheless, it took an additional three years for the former slaves to become full citizens of the United States when the 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868.
A July 9, 2018 article in Time Magazine, How the 14th Amendment’s Promise of Birthright Citizenship Redefined America, explained, “The ratification of the 14th Amendment in July 1868 transformed national belonging, and made African Americans, and indeed all those born on U.S. soil, citizens.“
Two years later on February 3, 1870, Congress ratified the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed African American men the right to vote and run for office, although it would take another 50 years for American women, both black and white, to achieve that right when the 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920.
Slavery was indeed a shameful era in our nation’s history. While Vermont became the first sovereign state to abolish slavery in 1777, it took another 85 years for an American President, Abraham Lincoln, to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite strong resistance from the former Confederate States, three years later on June 19, 1865, American slavery officially ended.
The celebration of Juneteenth as a symbol of freedom from the bondage of slavery is a uniquely American Holiday.
Despite Michael Joseph’s obvious pandering to the African American community of North Miami Beach, the fact remains that this Holiday has absolutely nothing to do with him.
Or with McKenzie Fleurimond.
Or with Paule Villard.
Or especially with Daniela Jean, who never misses the chance to brag that she was born in France in order to feel superior to everyone around her.
The four of them have made it perfectly clear that they are Haitian first … and American as an afterthought.
This observation is evidenced by the fact that they have spent upwards of a $100,000 or more of your money to celebrate Haitian Heritage Month, Haitian Flag Day, Haitian Independence Day, Haitian Mother’s Day, and Haitian Father’s Day.
They even flew across the country to attend National Haitian American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON)’s Leadership Retreat Program on your dime, yet they almost never show up to any of the other cultural events in the City that have nothing to do with Haiti.
All of which makes it that much more insulting that these four have made Juneteenth — a Holiday celebrating the end of American slavery — all about them.
Michael even went so far as to plaster his face on the City’s flyer for a Juneteenth event being held at the Jules Littman Performing Arts Theater on Saturday, June 18, 2022.
Talk about cultural appropriation!
None of these four have anything in common with African Americans except for the color of their skin.
They do not share the history of African Americans, whose ancestors were sold as chattel to the colonialists of Virginia, the culture that African Americans have fostered throughout the centuries, or the struggle that African Americans have gone through to achieve freedom and equality in this country.
Despite all of those unimaginable hardships, this country is their homeland and they have no allegiance to any other nation but America.
Michael Joseph and his co-conspirators on the dais have no business culturally appropriating this Holiday as their own.
They need to sit this one out for a change.
Stephanie
