Today is not only Father’s Day, but June 16, the day that brought freedom to the last of all enslaved people in the United States. This is also our latest federal holiday. That the two coincide is of personal importance to our Mark Whitaker:
The celebrations on June 16 have already begun this weekend in Galveston, Texas, the city where the holiday has its roots. It was 157 years ago today, June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger walked from the quays to downtown Galveston, reading General Order No. 3, which stated that “all slaves are free. This includes absolute equality of personal and property rights between former masters and slaves. “
But that was only two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
I have a personal connection to this story. This is the grave of my great-grandfather Frank Whitaker, who was born enslaved in Texas in 1853.
Mark Whitaker at the grave of his great-grandfather Frank Whitaker, who was enslaved from birth in Texas in 1853 until he was 11 years old. CBS News
My great-grandfather was 11 when he was released on June 16.
Frank Whitaker is buried with his wife Della and one of his daughters, Julia, who died when she was just one year old. The tombstones are in a small, well-maintained, all-black cemetery, down a dirt road just outside the town of Juit, about halfway between Houston and Dallas.
CBS News
An hour later, in Waco, I met my second cousin, Bernice Bryant, for the first time.
“I only recently found out about this part of the family,” Mark said.
“Me too!” Said Bernice.
“So, we’re discovering each other after so long.”
Frank Whitaker was also Bryant’s great-grandfather, and she actually met him as a child when he was in his 80s and had lost his sight: “I saw him once,” she said. “He was blind. And he was very upset because he started crying. Because he was blind and couldn’t see us.”
I sat down with Bernice; her daughter Angela Tyler; and Tyler’s son, John Bibl.
Angela Tyler, Bernice Bryant and John Bibl. CBS News
For earlier generations, Juneteenth didn’t really change that much. John said, “You had slaves who were freed, but there really was nowhere to go. They didn’t leave with a mule and land, something like that.”
“They stayed to work on the share tree,” Angela said. “They didn’t dare go out right away. They waited for years.” But they could not buy or own their land.
My great-grandfather stayed close to the ground, but managed to get some education. In the decades after the Juneteenth, Frank Whitaker became a land hunter owned by whites outside of Juet. Most of his 13 children have never left the area. But my grandfather, S. Sylvester Whitaker, Sr., migrated north to Pittsburgh and became a gravedigger.
Before he died, he left the following memory: “My father, a former slave, was highly respected by all who knew him. He became a good statistician and historian. Anyone who wants to know something about the history of Leon County will go to my father. He wrote many articles for Jewett Messenger, the village newspaper. “
Even in the Bernice generation, many descendants of Frank Whitaker of Texas harvested. As children, they all worked in the fields with their parents, picking and chopping cotton.
And then, Juneteenth was just another day in the field. They couldn’t take a day off. “You’re going to eat,” Bernice laughed. “And then we would eat and go back to the field!”
Now Juneteenth has spread from Texas on a national holiday. My newfound relatives have also come a long way. Angela is the director of a day center where Bernice also works. And John is president and CEO of Cen-Tex’s African-American Chamber of Commerce, which promotes black business. He helped organize the Waco Juneteenth holiday.
I asked Angela, “What does Juneteenth mean?”
“I think this should be a time to look back and see where we came from, and then celebrate where we are now, where we are trying to get,” she said.
John said: “Being a federal holiday allows everyone to understand that there is a second Independence Day, a real Independence Day in America, where everyone, you know, has the right to opportunities and freedoms. This is truly Independence Day. It’s not just for black people, it’s for America. “
Juneteenth is certainly about freedom. But for me this year it’s also about the family.
Telling Grace to the Extended Family. CBS News
The story, produced by Alan Golds. Editor: Ed Givnish.
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