When certain Americans hear, “It’s a free country,” they think everyone can say anything, do anything, be anything, go anywhere, strive for anything, believe anything, whenever and however they want. But, is it really a free country for everyone? Has it always been a free country — where all can pursue happiness as a God-given right?
As we reflect on Juneteenth — a recently instituted federal holiday that has been celebrated by African Americans since 1865 in response to notification that slavery was over — we can recognize that all people were not always free. In fact, African Americans were enslaved for 246 years and have only been legally free for almost 160 years, during which over half of that time they endured an American-style apartheid system of segregation and state-sanctioned violence.
Despite the mantra that Americans can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work hard to “get ahead,” in many cases it took Herculean effort for Black people to get anywhere past survival mode. We have worked hard ever since we were brought by force to this country over 400 years ago. We worked hard under the brutal conditions of slavery and received nothing for building and enriching this country. Then after the Civil War and slavery was abolished, millions who were freed from bondage were thrust into a hostile world with nothing. My great-grandmother Ida B. Wells was alive during that time, and she wrote in the 1893 pamphlet The Reason Why about Emancipation: “We were turned loose to starvation, destitution and death. So desperate was our condition that some of our statesmen declared it useless to try to save us by legislation as we were doomed to extinction.”
In a post-Civil War society, some former enslavers received compensation for their “lost property” — the humans they enslaved. However, those who were enslaved and their descendants have never received compensation for centuries of free labor that enriched the country. The political and economic scaffolding of the country was structured to keep formerly enslaved people and their descendants at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. For decades, as a people African Americans were disproportionately relegated to exploitative working conditions such as sharecropping; low-paying work such as sanitation workers maids, butlers, washerwomen. We have historically been underpaid for our labor, and disproportionately excluded from programs such as the GI bill and Social Security. The list of structural injustices and exclusions is extensive and reaction to the disparities has been the source of protests, uprisings, boycotts, and more.
As a people, African Americans have made great strides over the past century and a half, from wide-spread destitution to now having almost $8 trillion worth of assets — more than several countries combined. Through incredible resilience, creativity, and ingenuity African Americans have invented, shaped, overcome and prospered in many areas. One example is A.G. Gaston, who defied the odds and rigid segregation in the mid-1900s and made a fortune through business ventures in Birmingham, Alabama. If it weren’t for state-sanctioned violence and government policies that created more obstacles for Black people, the $124 trillion held by White families would have been more evenly earned.
Some people want to deny the reasons for racial economic inequities; however, numerous institutions, tours, lectures, exhibits, markers and films have been created to document, chronicle, recognize, and celebrate the challenges faced by African Americans and the triumphs achieved. On a recent visit to the Alabama cities Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, I got a sense of the conditions people endured as well as examples of efforts to gloss over, conceal, or omit the truths about slavery and the following century of American-style apartheid. For instance, a wall on the riverfront in Montgomery includes a timeline of the development of the city with zero mention of slavery.
Among dozens of truth-telling sites, some of the more well-known in Birmingham are the 16th Street Baptist Church, the site of a 1963 bombing that killed four girls and injured more is diagonally across the street from Kelly Ingram Park, where children were brutally attacked by dogs and water hoses. In Montgomery, in addition to visiting the recently created Legacy Sites by the Equal Justice Initiative, it was also haunting to walk through the tunnel from the riverfront to Commerce Street where thousands of enslaved people were transported and sold. The Mothers of Gynecology Monument chronicles how enslaved women were cruelly used for experimentation with no anesthesia by Dr. J. Marion Sims, to create tools and procedures. Then the city of Selma has the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute; Ancient Africa, Enslavement, and Civil War Museum; plus the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge, which was the site of the incredibly violent treatment of peaceful citizens walking to secure voting rights.
Within the seven decades that have passed since the rampant violence and terror of the 1950s and ’60s, the country has elected Black people into local, state, and national political positions, including president. Economically, some Black people have ascended into multi-millionaire status as athletes, entertainers, and business leaders. However, that doesn’t erase the fact that Black people as a group are still disproportionately low-income, over-incarcerated, and have less access to many things, including quality healthcare and fair housing.
Today, African Americans have many rights that previous generations fought, marched, and died for. We have the right to vote (which is under assault in some places), the right to become educated (in comparatively underfunded and underresourced schools), the right to purchase property (with frequently higher interest rate loans), the right to start and own businesses and utilize services (with disproportionately less access to capital). We have the legal right to enter any spaces and enjoy any services, but have less disposable income than others.
African Americans are still striving for true equality in many social and service areas. And economic freedom is not quite a reality for too many. Since the Civil War, African Americans have lost $326 billion worth and millions of acres of farmland, entire self-sufficient communities have been destroyed from numerous riots, including the 1919 “Red Summer” or development of highways or institutions and received zero compensation or restitution.
The United States would not be what it is without the contributions and genius of African Americans to every area of life. Our religion, our sense of humor, our determination to find joy in dance, art, music, and other areas of life have kept us going for hundreds of years, even under the worst conditions. African Americans, as a people, have almost always had to do more with less. But it’s not enough for some to do well by overcoming enormous obstacles and unfathomable odds. It’s time for the economic opportunities to be leveled. After almost 400 years in this country, it is time for Black people to receive equitable pay for current work, compensation for past work, and restitution for the destruction of businesses, homes, and extensive land theft. In addition to parades and television specials, Juneteenth should consist of recognition of historical barriers with a focus on how to correct past economic wrongs.