“No, no, 1,000 times no,” said a prominent conservative intellectual when I asked if he celebrated Juneteenth, the new national holiday commemorating when the last slaves in a remote part
“No, no, 1,000 times no,” said a prominent conservative intellectual when I asked if he celebrated Juneteenth, the new national holiday commemorating when the last slaves in a remote part of Texas were freed after the Civil War. Like many on the Right, my friend perceives Juneteenth as part of a broad leftist campaign to define America by its legacy of slavery – even though slavery was practiced by nearly every other people on Earth, and by a few even today.
Yet Juneteenth doesn’t have to be anti-American. Juneteenth should instead join July Fourth, Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Day, and a new holiday, Fall of the Berlin Wall (FBW) Day on November 9, as one of America’s four Freedom Days.
National holidays have political purposes. Before enabling long weekends at the beach, Labor Day legitimized unions. Columbus Day placated Italian-American voters incensed by events like the 1891 lynching of 11 Italians in New Orleans. Increasingly, Columbus Day is morphing into Indigenous Peoples’ Day, reflecting contemporary political sensibilities.
The problem with Juneteenth is that it seems to be part of an elite movement, exemplified by the “1619 Project,” to define the United States as a land of slavery rather than freedom. The text of President Biden’s original 2021 proclamation establishing the new holiday suggests as much, failing to even mention the Union forces which suffered 820,000 casualties freeing the slaves.
