‘TheGrio Daily’: America didn’t free the slaves. The slaves freed America

Editor’s be aware: The pursuing write-up is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more views on theGrio.

TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to the 1st episode of TheGrio Each day, the only podcast Black adequate to debut on Juneteenth. I necessarily mean, soon after all, that’s type of like when black men and women produced their debut. Appropriate? Appropriate?

I’m Michael Harriot, globe famous wypipologist, and this is TheGrio Daily. So we’re heading to be in this article each and every working day, and we’re not likely to be speaking about the news as substantially as we’re going to be speaking about the suggestions from the information. We’re likely to be listed here for you every single morning to obtain where ever you get your podcasts (I hope it’s theGrio app), providing you and our village a each day dose of what you should be wondering and speaking about nowadays.

It is not necessarily the information, right? It’s the suggestions that we should really be chatting
about. We’re not going to be just regurgitating what transpired in Washington or what
Kim Kardashian is carrying out. We’re heading to be digesting and pondering deeply – and occasionally
funniliy – about what white persons are performing, what black individuals ought to be performing, and
what The united states and the earth is executing.

Right now we’re likely to be talking about, of study course, Juneteenth. We simply cannot just get started on
Juneteenth and not communicate about Juneteenth. And especially, we’re heading to be conversing about
is Juneteenth a Black getaway? You know I heard some white people say that
Juneteenth was the very first black getaway. I really don’t know what they considered MLK Working day was,
but, you know, white individuals favored MLK, you know, immediately after he died.

Is Juneteenth, a Black vacation? I indicate, is July 4th, Independence Day, a white holiday getaway? I necessarily mean, 1st of all, I just call it the 4th of July due to the fact we know it’s not seriously everybody’s independence working day. I
suggest, like most black persons weren’t no cost on July 4th, 1776. And you know what? Here’s a
issue you likely did not know, or it’s possible you did. America’s birthday isn’t even July 4th, 1776.

We declared our independence on July 2nd, 1776. John Adams even wrote his spouse and
claimed, “The second day of July 1776 will be the most epoch working day in the history of The united states. I am apt to
believe that it will be celebrated by the succeeding generations as the good anniversary
festival. It ought to be commemorated as the working day of deliverance, by solemn functions of
devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows
games, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from a single end of the continent to the other,
from this time forward, forevermore.”

And, you know, we by no means did it suitable, cuz, like they forgot. By the following calendar year pretty much, they experienced forgot America’s birthday was on July 2nd. So they just selected, arbitrarily, July 4th. While July 4th was the real working day that the Declaration of Independence acquired back from the printers simply because, you know, they didn’t have true very good wi-fi back then.

And now it is straightforward to Google Juneteenth and come across out what it’s about. But it is about when soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 and informed the slaves that they were being totally free. I signify, well type of, ideal? Cuz you see like a ton of slaves ended up free of charge by now then. And, you know, like when they uncovered out that they ended up gonna have to decide on their have cotton, or what ever they expand in Texas – I mean what they mature? Guns? Cowboy hats? Cowboy boots? You know them white individuals was crying and the slaves were roasting the hell out of them.

But they should have been pleased. Cuz here’s the point that I feel, appropriate? I don’t believe that
Juneteenth just freed the slaves since the slaves in fact freed America. And which is why
Juneteenth is a getaway for all people, right? So let’s take a look at what I’m talking about.

So initial of all, white people did not free of charge the slaves. Which is just a fallacy. Like the
slaves freed by themselves. Like up to 500,000 slaves freed on their own for the duration of the Civil War.
That is extra than the Emancipation Proclamation freed, which is, you know, zero, due to the fact it did not seriously necessarily mean anything at all. Texas only had about 200,000 enslaved people today by the time they go through the Juneteenth proclamation. You know, in the course of the Civil War, when those people slaves would cost-free on their own, they would run towards the union line, appropriate? And they say, “I’m free now, appropriate?

And for the reason that of the principle of war, like, you just can’t just, you know, get points and steal factors from the men and women you’re fighting against. They made a unique class for enslaved folks who freed on their own, appropriate? Since they ended up technically, you know, in accordance to the Structure, according to the laws of the United States, they have been technically, you know, all these Confederates’ residence. So, when they freed them selves and manufactured it to the union lines, they turned technically contraband.

And so all about America during the Civil War, there were these contraband camps filled with formerly enslaved folks who experienced freed by themselves. And there were far more in all those contraband
camps than there ended up who had been freed on Juneteenth. So, really don’t allow them fool you that they
read a little something in Galveston, Texas, and then all of a slaves ended up free of charge. Nah, they did not no cost the
slaves, ideal? And the Emancipation Proclamation did not cost-free the slaves. The slaves ended up
really freed, technically, by the 13th Amendment.

Now, what is interesting about the 13th Amendment is like Congress experienced presently handed the legislation that gave enslaved men and women rights. But, you know, Abraham Lincoln was lifeless. His vice president was genuine racist. And he vetoed that civil legal rights act due to the fact he stated, and I quotation, “The invoice, in effect, proposes
a discrimination towards big figures of intelligent, deserving and patriotic foreigners (white people today)
and in favor of the Negro, to whom, soon after very long yrs of bondage, the avenues to independence
and intelligence have just now been abruptly opened. He should, of requirement, from his
former unlucky affliction of servitude, be much less knowledgeable.”

Soon after the slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment, the 14th Modification built them citizens. And the exciting thing about that is all in excess of The united states, there had been white individuals who benefited from that. See, before the slaves freed on their own, The us had hardly ever defined citizenship. Like if you was a white human being in South Carolina who was, you know, Jap European, you might not be able to vote. So it was a bunch of different variety of men and women who experienced been disenfranchised, who couldn’t vote, who weren’t viewed as citizens, until the slaves freed by themselves.

And the 14th Amendment gave The us a definition of citizenship. Now we connect with it birthright citizenship. Now, if you are born in The united states, you are a citizen. All of the enslaved individuals benefited from that. But a whole lot of white folks did, also. It meant a great deal of white people could vote, mainly because, all over again, the slaves freed America. But which is not the only matter, suitable?

In that 14th Amendment was a small clause identified as the thanks procedure clause. Now, you know, given that America wrote its Constitution, they explained there is selected matters you just just can’t do to men and women, ideal? But it was reiterated and expanded in the 14th Modification, correct? There were specified matters that you could not do to a particular person who was an American. You couldn’t violate their constitutional legal rights. You had to go by way of a method that is described by the legislation just before you strip them of their legal rights. Slaves gave that to The usa. You’re welcome.

And not just citizenship. Not just the thanks approach clause. But for the very first time we
explained, “Hey, recall all these individuals, these various sorts of white individuals we have been talking
about who couldn’t vote? Non-land entrepreneurs? Persons from sure countries? For the very first time,
they have been in a position to vote mainly because of the 15th amendment, which states you just can not deny
anyone their appropriate to vote mainly because of their race, or their shade, or their origin. We did that.
We gave that to y’all. We freed The us.

And that ain’t occasion the only detail, suitable? In the course of the Civil War, this male named Robert Smalls – very first of all, he was like actual clever. And he was working on a riverboat as an enslaved particular person. He was with some other black folks who ended up performing on that riverboat. And a single evening they informed the Confederates who, you know, ended up in cost of the riverboat, “Hey, hey, can our
households appear and take a look at us tonight? Y’all off, ideal? Like, I do not know if y’all understood this, but they
obtained the weekends off accomplishing the Civil War.

So anyway, Robert Smalls acquired him and his homeboys’ family members to arrive take a look at him. You know, the Accomplice white supremacist claimed it was alright, cuz, you know, I indicate what they absent do? They slaves. What the hell are they gone do? But what they didn’t know is Robert Smalls experienced been viewing them, and he experienced hid some of their uniforms. And they like, ‘Where my hat?’ “I really don’t know, sir, it have to be fell overboard.”

And so when they allow the family members of those people enslaved peoples arrive visit, Robert and his
homeboys, Robert, dressed in people Confederate uniforms. And then he dressed his crew
in those people Confederate uniforms. And as the family members ended up on that riverboat, he experienced currently
acquired all of the passwords and the alerts that the Confederate military used. And he drove that
detail ideal to the Union Military. And this built him a hero, correct? I signify, among us, proper?

Like the white individuals nonetheless wouldn’t give him, make him an officer until finally like years soon after the Civil
War. They would not make him, they would not give him a pension. But one particular matter happened,
appropriate? Due to the fact he was a hero, and because (and many people today really don’t know this but South Carolina
was like the greater part black right up until like the 1940s) he was elected to Congress. And initial, we have
to try to remember, they experienced to rewrite every state’s structure. And Robert Smalls was on that
constitutional conference committee for South Carolina.

And you know what he place in there? He made the 1st obligatory public education process in The us. But we never chat about that all the time. But due to the fact these slaves freed by themselves, Robert Smalls specially, he designed the to start with obligatory, constitutionally-enshrined general public schooling program in The united states. The explanation all of the white individuals in America get community faculties is
simply because of a Black, formerly-enslaved guy who freed himself.

Yet again, white individuals did not free the slaves. The slaves freed on their own, and then they freed The usa.

Thank you for listening. We’ll be below just about every morning for you. And you know, I’m
going to close each individual day with a declaring from Black America that you must truly feel in the depth
of your soul: You know, you just cannot take in all people macaroni.”

Thank you for listening. See you tomorrow.

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TheGrio Each day Podcast is an initial manufacturing brought to you by theGrio’s Black Podcast Network. Our present is produced by Richard White and edited and engineered by Justin Case Lone. Regina Griffin is our running editor of podcasts.

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Michael Harriot is a author, cultural critic and championship-level Spades player. His reserve, Black AF Background: The Unwhitewashed Story of The us, will be released in 2022.

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