MIDWESTERN MARX
  • Home
  • Online Articles
    • Articles >
      • All
      • News
      • Politics
      • Theory
      • Book Reviews
      • Chinese Philosophy Dialogues
    • American Socialism Travels
    • Youth League
  • Dr. Riggins' Book Series
    • Eurocommunism and the State
    • Debunking Russiagate
    • The Weather Makers
    • Essays on Bertrand Russell and Marxism
    • The Truth Behind Polls
    • Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
    • Lenin's Materialism & Empirio-Criticism
    • Mao's Life
    • Lenin's State and Rev
    • Lenin's LWC Series
    • Anti-Dühring Series
  • Store
    • Books
    • Merchandise
  • YouTube
  • Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
  • Contact
    • Article Submissions
    • The Marks of Capital
  • Online Library
  • Staff

6/18/2022

Liberation Editorial – Juneteenth: Black liberation through revolutionary struggle! By: Nino Brown

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
On June 19, 1865 Major General Gordon Granger and 1,800 Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, nearly two months after General Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy surrendered in the decisive battle of Appomattox, to announce that slavery finally ended with the issuing of General Order Number 3. This order stated: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” 

This declaration claimed that there would be “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.” The last enslaved Africans in Texas were set free not by declaration of their freedom, but by the arms of the Union military, who fought loyalists and recalcitrant slave masters who sought to eke out every last drop of labor from their slaves, despite the results of the war. Black freedom was won through persistent struggle against slave masters to the very end – all paper declarations and proclamations of freedom aside. 

It is simply a myth that enslaved Africans were unaware of their freedom and were simply ignorant of the declarations. As a formerly enslaved man, Felix Haywood said at the time “We knowed what was goin’ on in [the war] all the time…We all felt like heroes and nobody had made us that way but ourselves.” The ending of slavery was not something to be decreed or proclaimed; freedom had to be seized from the clutches of the defeated slaveocracy by Black people acting as agents of their own liberation. 

The ensuing celebration of this emancipation on June 19th came to be known as “Juneteenth”  – a distinctly African American holiday commemorating the final death blow against the system of slavery in the United States. Last year, Juneteenth became a federally recognized holiday. But deep inequality still exists between African Americans and the heirs of the slavocracy, and in fact the struggle for Black liberation and freedom rages on as the massive 2020 rebellions demonstrated. It was this massive Black-led resistance that forced the U.S. government’s hand compelling President Biden to make Juneteenth a national holiday. But the U.S. ruling class is stubbornly refusing to make substantial material improvements to the lives of Black people in this country. 

Radical Black resistance and rebellion cannot be extinguished with hollow recognition of a racist history that still haunts our present reality. It is this spirit of fierce resistance to all enemies of Black freedom that we must remember and draw on. Black militant resistance to oppression will continue so long as capitalism exists. The real history and legacy of Juneteenth cannot be bottled up and sold, we must fight to remember and reclaim its radical essence. 

Across the United States, the fight for some form of reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans continues to gain steam. The fight to abolish the racist police and prison state that has made super-profits off Black and other oppressed people’s labor continues to build. Black workers are leading the multinational class struggle for workers rights through organizing Amazon workers from Bessemer, Alabama to Staten Island, New York. 

Despite the unequal and disproportionate damage that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the Black working class, the continued racist police and vigilante terror, and racist treatment of Black migrants, the struggle for complete and total liberation of Black people continues to grow. Black people are not waiting, and cannot afford to wait, for any declarations or proclamations of “freedom” from the ruling class. As Malcolm X so cogently put it: “Any time you beg another man to set you free, you will never be free. Freedom is something that you have to do for yourselves.“
​
Juneteenth began as a people’s holiday; there were no corporate sponsors or apolitical misremembering – it was a celebration of the militant struggle of Black people fighting for their freedom and humanity to the very end. The Party for Socialism and Liberation recognizes and draws inspiration from this crucial history. We recognize the role that the Black working class played in waging what was known as the “second American revolution” against the system of slavery and continues to play today in the overall struggle for liberation from oppression and exploitation in this country. The struggle for socialism is inseparable from the struggle for Black liberation and Juneteenth represents this valiant fight to eradicate all vestiges of racism and white supremacy. On Juneteenth we recommit to the fight for Black liberation in our lifetime!

Author

Nino Brown


This article was republished from Liberation News. 

Archives

June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020

Share

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

Details

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020

    Categories

    All
    Aesthetics
    Afghanistan
    Althusser
    American Civil War
    American Socialism
    American Socialism Travels
    Anti Imperialism
    Anti-Imperialism
    Art
    August Willich
    Berlin Wall
    Bolivia
    Book Review
    Brazil
    Capitalism
    Censorship
    Chile
    China
    Chinese Philosophy Dialogue
    Christianity
    CIA
    Class
    Climate Change
    COINTELPRO
    Communism
    Confucius
    Cuba
    Debunking Russiagate
    Democracy
    Democrats
    DPRK
    Eco Socialism
    Ecuador
    Egypt
    Elections
    Engels
    Eurocommunism
    Feminism
    Frederick Douglass
    Germany
    Ghandi
    Global Capitalism
    Gramsci
    History
    Hunger
    Immigration
    Imperialism
    Incarceration
    Interview
    Joe Biden
    Labor
    Labour
    Lenin
    Liberalism
    Lincoln
    Linke
    Literature
    Lula Da Silva
    Malcolm X
    Mao
    Marx
    Marxism
    May Day
    Media
    Medicare For All
    Mencius
    Militarism
    MKULTRA
    Mozi
    National Affairs
    Nelson Mandela
    Neoliberalism
    New Left
    News
    Nina Turner
    Novel
    Palestine
    Pandemic
    Paris Commune
    Pentagon
    Peru Libre
    Phillip-bonosky
    Philosophy
    Political-economy
    Politics
    Pol Pot
    Proletarian
    Putin
    Race
    Religion
    Russia
    Settlercolonialism
    Slavery
    Slavoj-zizek
    Social-democracy
    Socialism
    South-africa
    Soviet-union
    Summer-2020-protests
    Syria
    Theory
    The-weather-makers
    Trump
    Venezuela
    War-on-drugs
    Whatistobedone...now...likenow-now
    Wilfrid-sellers
    Worker-cooperatives
    Xunzi

All ORIGINAL Midwestern Marx content is under Creative Commons
(CC BY-ND 4.0) which means you can republish our work only if it is attributed properly (link the original publication to the republication) and not modified. 
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Online Articles
    • Articles >
      • All
      • News
      • Politics
      • Theory
      • Book Reviews
      • Chinese Philosophy Dialogues
    • American Socialism Travels
    • Youth League
  • Dr. Riggins' Book Series
    • Eurocommunism and the State
    • Debunking Russiagate
    • The Weather Makers
    • Essays on Bertrand Russell and Marxism
    • The Truth Behind Polls
    • Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
    • Lenin's Materialism & Empirio-Criticism
    • Mao's Life
    • Lenin's State and Rev
    • Lenin's LWC Series
    • Anti-Dühring Series
  • Store
    • Books
    • Merchandise
  • YouTube
  • Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
  • Contact
    • Article Submissions
    • The Marks of Capital
  • Online Library
  • Staff