Juneteenth 2024

Today is “Juneteenth” or “Juneteenth Day.”  Many may not understand the origin of the term, nor appreciate what it means in 2024. Here are a few words to explain the origin of the celebration, as I also offer a personal application of two of the spiritual concepts associated with this holiday.

Called Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, or Jubilee Day, Juneteenth goes back to June 19th, 1865, the date when the last slaves in America were freed. Although the rumors of freedom were widespread before this, actual emancipation did not come until General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas and issued General Order No. 3, on June 19th, almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Annually, more than 200 cities in the United States sponsor week-long celebrations, culminating on June 19th, while others hold shorter celebrations. Juneteenth had previously been established as a state holiday in Texas in 1980, with several other states later declaring it a state holiday or day of observance. Legislation establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday was passed by Congress on June 16, 2021, and signed into law by President Joe Biden the following day, exactly three years ago on June 17, my birthday.

Juneteenth Day symbolizes the end of slavery and the release of freedom for African Americans.  An immediate association with the word “slavery” is the word ‘freedom.” Let me note that slavery has been a universal condition of humanity, from the dawn of civilization down to the 21^st Century.  Let me further explain that what we saw demonstrated in slavery as practiced in the United States and other places in Western civilization during the Civil War period was a demonic corruption and horrific distortion of what God had in mind when He speaks of “servitude” or “slavery” and “freedom” in the Scriptures.

In the Bible, there is a paradoxical or oxymoronic relationship between these two opposing concepts, particularly when we examine slavery and freedom. In the Old Testament, a master could keep a Hebrew slave for only six years. He was released in the seventh year, called the sabbatical. Every seven sabbaths of years (seven times seven or 49 years) was a time of great celebration. The shofar would sound to mark the year of Jubilee. In the fiftieth year, all debtors were freed from debt and all slaves were released from servitude.

A slave, upon being freed, however, could return to his former master and by his freedom of will choose to serve that master. His motivation for this decision was his love for the master and the master’s love for the servant. The master would take the servant before the elders of the gate and in a public ceremony, they would pierce the servant’s ear as a symbol of obedience and service forever.  The slave who, after being freed and returning to serve his master, was marked man. His pierced ear indicated to everyone that he was “ear-marked” and belonged to his master.

There is a parallel practice in the New Testament whereby a slave would be branded or tattooed with the marks of his master.  When a person “sells out to God” and makes a deeper commitment to serve the Lord, he then becomes a branded slave. The branding of the slaves takes place after a slave has been freed. By his freedom of will, the slave returns to his master and tells him that he would like to be his slave for the rest of his life. The Lord Jesus Christ made it available for us to become his bondslaves by our free will. Then his brand is put on us. We are marked for the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul speaks of himself as having the marks (the stigma or stigmata) of the Lord Jesus Christ in his body. He was a “branded slave.”

These two illustrations of the deep commitment of a slave to his master are expressions of “voluntary servitude” not “involuntary servitude” which is “slavery” which is illegal and immoral.

I close my sharing regarding Juneteenth Day 2024 with a poem written in celebration of my 50^th birthday where I personalized my commitment to serve the Lord Jesus Christ:

This Year of My Jubilee

Exodus 21:1-6

Leviticus 25:1-17

I stand alone clothed only with the wind

At the end of another seventh sabbath year.

Gatherings of blessings now flow through my mind

As the shofar’s call resounds in my ear

To proclaim this year of my jubilee.

I reflect upon the wonders of this grace

Wherein I stand, a bondslave now made free.

In this golden moment as I embrace

The truth and pledge to love as You command,

Pierce my ear, place Your brand upon my soul;

Enlighten me so that I may understand

That to run to serve is life’s highest goal.

Unfold before me pleasures of Your ways;

Renew and seal my vows to serve You all my days.

For me, as a Christian believer, there is more to “Juneteenth” or Emancipation Day or Jubilee Day than the account of the last slaves to learn of their freedom at the end of the Civil War. Slavery and freedom are most remarkably intertwined according to the Scriptures.

We conclude with Maverick City Music offering this musical reminder: “Jubilee” featuring Naomi Raine & Bryan & Katie Torwalt:

Black History Month 2024

February 1 marks the beginning of Black History Month. Each year we celebrate the accomplishments of African Americans and recognize their distinctive contributions to the rich tapestry representing our nation.  During this time, I often reflect upon important impressions occurring during my childhood in Gary, Indiana, “the town that knew me when.” Last year I offered a presentation entitled “My Soul Looks Back, All the Way Back and Wonders. . . A Celebration of Black History in Poetry.”

As I began, I asked the audience to journey back with me seventy-three years to February 22, 1951, when I was eight years old in the third grade, back in the middle of the 20^th Century. I recall looking at my class picture and noticing the bulletin board in the back of the classroom decorated with these words: “Negro History Week.”  Since that time, the celebration and recognition of the contribution of African Americans has been expanded to Black History Month.

The bulletin board in the picture reminded me that at that time I consciously determined that I would someday “make history” and do something significant as an African American. Back in the day, it was expressed this way: “I wanted to be a credit to the Negro Race.”

Today, I am a former registered pharmacist, a published poet and a writer, and a retired professor of African American Literature, who continues to teach online. As an adjunct professor, I continue to teach  because “I love the teacher’s task and find my richest prize in eyes that open and in minds that ask.”

Just as I made up my mind in elementary school that I would someday make a significant contribution as an African American and someday do something to “make history,” I would like to think that there are countless other young men and women inspired by that same desire to “make history,” each in their unique way.

So often we think of history as people and events of the past; however, we must remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “The reader of history must replace the words ‘there’ and ‘then’ with the words ‘here’ and ‘now.’” 

As we celebrate Black History Month, I also want to remind readers that the recognition of the contributions of Black Americans must not just take place during February. The celebration should be ongoing. To commemorate this grand occasion, I offer this poetic tribute:  

New Horizons

A Psalm of Celebration

This month we turn back the pages of time

To obscure sections in history’s scrapbook.

With fervor, we seek to correct the crime

Of omission of Black heroes.  We look.

For ministers, martyrs, masters of rhyme,

Familiar names of those who first took

Part in the legacy that seeks to bring

Black people to lift every voice and sing.

Yet our eyes should not focus on the past

Too long.  We need to look ahead and see

That heroic memories cannot last.

Living heroes must transcend ebony

Images; we need women who stand fast,

Men who live to unveil the mystery.

Heroes must live beyond this month.  Somehow

Our lives must tell that history is now.

We who know our true heritage are the ones

To set our vision toward new horizons.  

Reflections on Black History: Seventy-one years ago

My class photo taken in the third grade 71 years ago reminds me of a desire to “make history” during the celebration of what was then Negro History Week. Times and the name have changed, but the desire still burns brightly.

As the celebration of Black History Month continues to unfold, I recall an event occurring 71 years ago to the date, on February 22, 1951. I now realize that the day was also George Washington’s birthday. I was eight years old in the 3rd grade at Roosevelt School, an all-black school in Gary, Indiana where I was born. I have been reflecting while looking at my class picture and noticing the bulletin board in the back of the classroom decorated with these words: “Negro History Week.” Since that time, the celebration and recognition of the contribution of African Americans have been expanded to Black History Month.

The bulletin board in the picture reminded me that at that time I consciously determined that I would someday “make history” and do something significant as an African American. Back in the day, it was expressed this way: “I wanted to be a credit to the Negro Race.”

Over the past seven decades, I continue to strive to make that desire a reality. In 2019 during a book signing and presentation during Black History Month 2019, I shared from my newly published book Embracing Your Life Sentence: How to Transform Life’s Greatest Tragedies into Your Greatest Triumphs. I also reflected upon the significance of Black History and related some of the events transpiring in my life since that class photo was taken.

I went on to graduate as Valedictorian of Froebel High School, class of 1960 and enrolled as a pharmacy student at Purdue University from 1960-1965, becoming the first African American to graduate from Purdue’s five-year pharmacy program. During my time as a pharmacy student, I was also introduced to Black poetry and would later discover my own inclination for writing poetry.

Upon graduation from Purdue, I took the state board examination and passed to become a registered pharmacist in Indiana. My first full-time job was as a hospital pharmacist at Methodist Hospital in Gary, Indiana. I was enjoying the good life until I received “Greeting from Uncle Sam,” and I was drafted into the US Army in 1967, in the midst of the Viet Nam conflict. That two-year stint I describe as my “Lemonade Experience” in that what I thought would have been the worst thing that could have ever happened turned out providentially to be far better than I could have ever imagined. While I was a pharmacy instructor at the Medical Field Service School in San Antonio at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, I discovered the joys of classroom teaching and writing poetry, passions that continue to burn.

During my stint in the military from 1967-69, I also rode the crest of the Jesus Movement, a national revival impacting the lives of countless young people and others. I experienced a powerful conversion that introduced me to the transforming power of God through receiving the Holy Spirit and studying the Bible.

Twenty years later in 1981, I enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Indiana University, pursuing a doctorate in English with a minor in Afro-American Studies. I completed my dissertation in 1986 entitled “Portrait of the Bondslave in the Bible: Slavery and Freedom in the Works of Four Afro-American Poets.” Of those four early Black poets discussed, I first heard of three of them as a freshman at Purdue in 1961.

As I reflect upon my life, I acknowledge that I have been blessed to enjoy the overflow of God’s goodness and grace. Today, I am a Vietnam veteran and cancer survivor of more than 20 years. In addition, I am a former registered pharmacist, a published poet and a writer, a retired professor of African American Literature, who continues to teach because “I love the teacher’s task and find my richest prize in minds that open and in eyes that ask.”

Just as I made up my mind in elementary school that I would someday make a significant contribution as an African American and someday do something to “make history,” I am sure that others now living and those who come after me also have a similar burning aspiration to “make history.” So often we think of history as people and events of the past; however, we must remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “The reader of history must replace the words ‘there’ and ‘then’ with the words ‘here’ and ‘now.’”

I close my sharing with an original poem shared during the opening session of a New Testament History Class that I taught in 1976 at a Bible college in Kansas when I knew that I was destined to teach on the collegiate level. That class and countless other events confirmed my desire someday to make history.

The Living Gallery of the New Testament

In the living gallery of the New Testament is reserved a special space
An empty canvas awaits each feature of your face.
Each of us paints a self-portrait in the minutest detail.
To develop your life’s masterpiece, you can never fail
When you follow Christ’s example, the Master of the Word,
Beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord
Each day abounds with potential for matchless artistry.
Now is your golden moment—you are making “His Story.”

I close with this related song “History” by Maverick City Music.