John Cornyn, the senior Republican from Texas (where Juneteenth originated and has been observed as a state holiday since 1980) introduced a bill in the Senate yesterday to make it so.
This could certainly come to pass as Cornyn is up for re-election and so is President Trump. I'm sure a Republican Senator and a Republican President would like to take credit for establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Of course, Trump has odiously claimed he made Juneteenth famous. However, Trump needs something about which he can genuinely brag and if he signs a law enacting Juneteenth as a federal holiday he will brag about it from now until November.
But if this doesn't to come pass and this November sees the election of Joe Biden and a Democratic majority in both Houses then it will certainly come to pass sometime in 2021 with an effective date of no later than June 19, 2022.
I can certainly empathize with African-Americans who would view an occasion which formally ended the last vestiges of slavery in the United States with greater meaning than the Fourth of July. As Frederick Douglass proclaimed while in Rochester, New York following Fourth of July celebrations in 1852, "This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn."
Which leads to these three questions.
Can Juneteenth & The Fourth of July coexist as federal holidays?
Can we rejoice both days?
If rejoicing isn't possible then what of respect and admiration?
Douglass, while mourning the Fourth of July, acknowledged his respect for those who signed the Declaration of Independence as he began his remarks:
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.
Among those whom Douglass claimed admiration was Thomas Jefferson, the principal drafter and signatory of The Declaration of Independence. But because Jefferson owned slaves he is viewed with the same disdain as those who represented the Confederacy and a statue of Jefferson is to be removed along with Confederate monuments in a park in Decatur, Georgia. A statue of Jefferson might also soon be removed from the grounds of New York City Hall. A few days ago, protesters tore down a Jefferson statue in Portland, Oregon.
I suspect none of the people who wish to remove statues of Jefferson have read Jefferson's 1785 book Notes on the State of Virginia as Douglass later did. In it Jefferson wrote of slavery, “There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us.” Upon reading Notes Douglass reflected and asked, “How can I claim to love Jesus Christ and still reserve for myself the right to continue to hate Thomas Jefferson?”
Alas, I believe those who wish to erase Jefferson from the public square are motivated by hatred and possess no capacity of forgiveness. Should Juneteenth become a federal public holiday, I fear that one of the unintended consequences would be that activists will see fit to expunge Independence Day and erase the significance of the Fourth of July as they are currently expunging the author and signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
Should this come to pass then I believe the only antidote would be to spread Douglass' words. All of his words. Because we can hate the sin of slavery without hating its sinners.
I hope that the Fourth of July and Juneteenth can compliment each other. The Fourth of July honors all men being created equal when Juneteenth honors it being put into practice.
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