Charles M. Aulino

Union Army troops under the command of Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. Upon Granger’s public reading of an order of emancipation most people in the region first learned that slavery had been abolished in America. Annual celebrations in the Lone Star State began soon after the first “Juneteenth,” and gradually spread around the country. 31 States now recognize the anniversary in some manner, several having proclaimed it as a State holiday.

With hindsight, it is now clear that General Granger’s proclamation of “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves” was little more than symbolism at the time. 144 years of struggle and determination has brought meaningful progress toward the goal of equality in our country. Juneteenth is rightly a day for celebration of that progress and of the memory of so many Americans who have contributed to it. This is also a reminder of how ephemeral greatness and fame can be; wonderful stories fade from the collective memory so that the life lessons and inspiration they offer are lost to future generations.

One great but largely forgotten story is that of Joseph Louis Barrow, whose family of sharecroppers had to flee Alabama to escape threats from the Ku Klux Klan. Not well disposed to school, he discovered that he had a natural talent for boxing and soon rose to prominence under the shortened name Joe Louis. Subtle opposition to black men in the boxing ring fell before the determined, hard-hitting young man who eventually gained the heavyweight championship, held it longer than anyone before or since and became the symbol of the might and righteousness of the cause of Allied forces in World War II. At a White House meeting, President Franklin Roosevelt told Louis America needed muscles like his to beat the Germans.

In the 1940s, while Louis was still heavyweight champion, the cause of true racial equality was advanced by the hard-charging president of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Branch Rickey decided to bring a talented infielder up from the minor league Montreal Royals, making Jackie Robinson the first black player on a major league roster. Rickey recognized Robinson’s fiery spirit as essential to the success of his plan to end segregation in major league baseball. Just a few years earlier, Robinson had found himself in serious trouble for fighting with an abusive white army officer. He might never have played professional baseball if Sergeant Joe Louis had not been around to pull some strings in order to get Robinson out of the stockade.

Another who deserves remembrance on Juneteenth is Medgar Evers, field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi beginning in the early 1950s and until his assassination by a white supremacist in 1963. An early source of inspiration in Evers’ life was Jomo Kenyatta, freedom fighter and first Prime Minister of Kenya, the country from which our nation’s new president is a descendant. Evers saw himself as a “servant leader,” a self-view President Obama clearly shares. Among Evers’ many responsibilities was the investigation of racist murders, including that of a black teenager visiting from Chicago named Emmett Till.

Louis, Rickey, Robinson and Evers all died long before the first Juneteenth celebrated in America under the leadership of an African American president. However, each of them, in his own way, contributed to a cultural transformation that enables acceptance of diversity, and that will ultimately make General Granger’s proclamation a reality.