Free to be Black in America
Texas, the CROWN Act and Juneteenth
I just read that the CROWN Act was passed in Texas yesterday while hanging out at a fantastic Black-owned vegan restaurant called Mo Better Brews in Houston. The name is a play on the Spike Lee Joint Mo Better Blues. The atmosphere, food, and music embodied the feeling I always get in a room filled with eclectic Black people. I love how beautiful, welcoming, and free-spirited we are. I would be remiss if I didn't take the time to mention how wonderful this business was before I go on to explain why I don't celebrate Juneteenth or anything else that gives me the right to be Black in America.
Twenty states have passed the CROWN Act — an acronym for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. Many are celebrating this small milestone and thanking Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. While I appreciate anything that looks like progress and forward-thinking, I’m ambivalent about celebrating things that should simply be.
After being asked several times during my visit to Texas where I would be celebrating Juneteenth, my answer is, I will not be “celebrating.” While I respectfully honor Queen Mother Dr. Opal Lee for her dedication and time spent advocating to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, I do not see it as a holiday and will not be celebrating. Instead, I will love on and cherish my time with friends and family, but I will not mark the day my ancestors were freed from chattel slavery. Why? My ancestors should never have been kidnapped, tortured, raped, robbed of their cultural identity, and used as free labor to build this country.
To add insult to injury, the Emancipation Proclamation, signed in 1862, was not recognized until June 19th, 1865, after troops marched into Galveston Bay and announced that over 250,000 enslaved people were free by executive decree. This forced the remaining enslavers to release their enslaved…only for Black people to wake up to an unfulfilled promise of 40 acres and a mule to start a new life, rescinded by President Andrew Johnson after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Four hundred acres of land that enslaved people worked like cattle was returned to Confederate owners after Field Order 15 was overturned, declaring that confiscated land on the coastline from Charleston, SC to Jacksonville, FL, be redistributed to freed Blacks in 40-acre parcels.
It is 2023, and this country still needs to pass laws that govern the legalities of being Black in America. Like any other ethnic holiday in this country, Juneteenth will be bastardized by corporations looking to capitalize on the day. These are also the same companies that had to be told, by law, that Black people are allowed to be Black and wear their hair the way it naturally grows out of their head if they choose to. Think about that.
Honoring the ancestors will not be overlooked on Juneteenth. I will get up at sunrise, pour out libations, pray for their restful spirit and ask them to intervene in my day-to-day life in the traditional Yoruba way I was taught as a child. America can keep passing minor laws to ensure my right to exist. I was going to wear my hair as wild as I wanted to anyway. Conforming is something I will not do at 52 years old. I will always be unapologetically me. America has yet to prove I have the same freedoms as those less melanated, so I don't “celebrate” every little victory that says I deserve to be here.
Afterthought: I took this picture in front of a female tree in Houston. It stands in front of the Black-owned business Mo Better Brews. There is a spiritual significance to this...our ancestors’ spirits live in these spaces. America owes the descendants of chattel slavery; one way or the other, our ancestors will get their just due through those who invest time in remembering and honoring their existence. While America is whitewashing our textbooks and trying to silence our stories, there will always be a griot recording and telling our stories, with or without permission. America will learn her story is worthless without a Black voice. It is worthless without the voice of all that have been marginalized in this country.
