Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger informed enslaved Black people in Texas that they’d actually been free since 1863. Black Americans have celebrated Juneteenth for almost 200 years, but it finally became a federal holiday in 2021. Even my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, is celebrating — well, sort of. South Carolina state offices remain open on Juneteenth. The state legislature passed a law in 2022 that grants workers a floating holiday that they can use for Juneteenth in place of Confederate Memorial Day, which remains a state holiday. (Wonkette, at long last, will be taking the day, so make other plans amongst yourselves.)
However, lovely downtown Greenville will have a grand Juneteenth Mega Fest on June 17. Here’s how it’s been advertised.
These models aren’t just white. They’re Abercrombie & Fitch white. They don’t even have Bo Derek braids.
It’s as if they gentrified Juneteenth after only two years. You can almost hear the lady pictured saying, “Juneteenth use to be sooo sketchy. You’d never want to walk alone at night during Juneteenth. But now you can get great kombucha on Juneteeth.”
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Now in fairness, Juneteenth GVL had released several banners promoting the event that featured Black, Asian, and Hispanic people. The white couple was just one of them. The event’s organizer Reuben Hays, who’s Black, had said that Juneteenth is a holiday for everyone and everyone should feel welcome. The latter, of course, is still true even if Black people are centered in the marketing.
“We did not want to make this exclusively Black,” Hays said. “That is not in the spirit of unity.”
Greenville’s Fighting Injustice Together activist Bruce Wilson, meanwhile, said he was “appalled,” “saddened,” and “angry” — so a lot of emotions — by the poster.
“I’m the first to say that White America can celebrate Juneteenth, I just don’t think White America should be the face of Juneteenth,” Wilson said. “And I think that’s where the disconnect is. One, I’m asking this event be boycotted if they do not feel the need to remove this banner. Secondly, I’m asking everyone to call the city manager and voice your concerns about this particular banner.”
Hays said in an interview last week that Juneteenth was “a very obscure sort of holiday. I never really knew much about it. I’m not from the South, so I didn’t learn about Juneteenth, really until I went to Texas on business in 2013.” But it was deliberately “obscure” because most white people ignored it. Most Juneteenth celebrations died out during the height of Jim Crow, when expressions of Black joy were almost capital offenses. However, Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968 sparked a resurgence.
Hays did post an apology on Facebook.
Juneteenth GVL would like to offer an apology to the community for the presence of non-black faces being represented on two flags representing Juneteenth. We acknowledge this mistake having been made and will correct the error quickly. This error was an attempt at uniting all of Greenville and thereby a slight oversight on one individual’s part that prevented us from fully embracing the rich potential and celebrating the depth of the black culture through the message and meaning of Juneteenth, and for that, we apologize to you the entire community.
To foster solidarity and inclusivity, we will continue to work to make all communities better. We take full responsibility for this misstep in this regard, and pledge to rectify the situation promptly and responsibly. Again, the flags in question will be removed as soon as possible.
The statement goes on for a while. Suffice to say, he’s sorry for the mess he caused. Look, Hays seems well-intentioned and everyone should still go to the Juneteeth celebration. But it’s OK for Black people have something that is uniquely our own. We were held in bondage alone, after all.
Let’s not also forget some grim realities: Rep. Ralph Norman from South Carolina was one of the 14 Republicans who voted against the Juneteenth holiday. Here’s his statement where he suggests that Juneteenth should have a separate but unequal name other than “Independence Day”:
First of all, our Independence Day is July 4th. Period. Independence Day celebrates the anniversary of our declared independence from Great Britain, and it’s been that way for 245 years. If you want to call Juneteenth, for example, Freedom Day or Emancipation Day then fine – that’s certainly worth considering. But calling it Independence Day is WHOLLY INAPPROPIATE (sic).
July 4, 1776, was an Independence Day for some of us. You could ask the people Thomas Jefferson owned.
Exit polls for the 2016 South Carolina Republican primary revealed that a majority of voters believed the Confederate flag should’ve remained flying over the State capitol, and 38 percent of Donald Trump’s supporters believed the Confederacy should’ve won the Civil War. In the 2020 presidential election, 73 percent of white South Carolinians voted for Trump and just 26 percent voted for Biden.
This doesn’t mean all white Republicans or Trump voters in the state are racist. But let’s wait a few years before putting white folks on the Juneteenth merch. Maybe when it’s an official state holiday, we can talk.
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