On Wednesday, the US will celebrate Juneteenth for the fourth time as a federal holiday. But the holiday, which was born out of bipartisanship, has become more divisive over the years. Leftists have used Juneteenth to promote radical racial policies, such as reparations, and have excluded most Americans from the holiday. As a result, many conservatives Opposing Federal Holidays.
But in this Texas historian’s eyes, it would be a mistake to open up a holiday that symbolizes national unity to leftist manipulation. Instead, we should do what conservatives do best: go back to basics.
It’s not too late to protect the holidays from those who would exploit them.
Until the past four years, Juneteenth was the undisputed day celebrating American freedom and the end of slavery in Texas. The holiday commemorates the day General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, notifying Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the state’s slaves and marking the end of slavery in the Confederacy. The following year, in 1866, Galveston residents began celebrating “Jubilee Day,” which eventually became known as Juneteenth. In 1979, Democratic state representative Al Edwards of Houston introduced a bill to make Juneteenth a paid state holiday. Republican Governor Bill Clements signed the bill, and the holiday was born.
National acceptance of Juneteenth has also taken off on a bipartisan basis. President Trump became the first president to call for its adoption as a federal holiday in 2020, but it took a year for Congress to act. After Congress did act, the bill passed the Senate unanimously and the House by 415-14.
With this history, conservatives, even those like me who are wary of the pitfalls of identity politics, will welcome Juneteenth’s consistency with the principles enshrined in our founding documents. The holiday celebrates what Lincoln called “a new birth of American freedom.” It celebrates the completion of the work of July 4, 1776, which was to give freedom to the people. all Americans. It also commemorates the countless young men and women who died fighting for our freedom.
That’s good enough for Texas, so why are some conservatives starting to oppose the holiday?
Unfortunately, the answer lies mainly with the left.
The left has worked hard to hijack this holiday, divide the nation, and use it as a tool to replace the real Independence Day. It started with the very first federal holiday, Juneteenth, when Democratic Party leaders linked the 156-year-old holiday to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. They then named the national holiday “Juneteenth Independence Day” to put it in conflict with the 4th of July.
What was once a widely accepted state holiday celebrating a key moment in Texas history has become a pawn in a national game of identity politics and the subject of segmentation in the 24-hour news cycle. Published an article Calling Juneteenth “the real Fourth of July” is an insult to our Founding Fathers and to all Americans who celebrate the Fourth of July. Activists are calling Juneteenth “Racial trauma” and Enact Reparations.
Under these circumstances, it’s no wonder Americans feel uncomfortable about Juneteenth, which is met with a stream of self-righteous, anti-American criticism and division from the media and elected leaders. Most Americans are excluded from the celebration, including those who believe in America’s founding and those who don’t believe that America today is “systemically racist.”
But it’s not too late to protect this holiday from those who seek to exploit it. One way to do this is to celebrate it as the first day of a two-week national celebration of independence and freedom, from June 19 to July 4.
We should remember and extend to all Americans the wars in which Americans fought and died to protect our common heritage of freedom. We should commemorate the armies of young patriots, black and white, who fought against tyrannical elites, whether the British Crown or the plantation owners. We should consider how today’s elites seek to take away the freedoms secured by the blood of our forefathers on June 19th and July 4th, and work with our neighbors to defend our freedoms.
That is the true spirit of Juneteenth. A day to rebuild our country, not tear it down. We have an opportunity to reject racial division and ivory tower historical revisionism. It is long past time for conservatives to begin reclaiming our institutions. Let’s start on June 19th.
