Black Catholics celebrate Juneteenth, reckon with church’s history of slavery

The Washington Post ^ | June 19, 2023 | Mary Claire Malloy

[ebb tide]

Black Catholics celebrate Juneteenth, reckon with church’s history of slavery

“Dearest brothers and sisters in Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Cardinal Wilton Gregory said from the altar at Mount Calvary Catholic Church Sunday morning. “Surely that scriptural quotation must’ve captured the emotions of those formerly enslaved people in Texas as the words of the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War finally had reached them.”

Sunday’s Mass in Forestville, celebrated by America’s first Black cardinal, is part of a nationwide commemoration of Juneteenth. President Biden first designated the day as a federal holiday in 2021, a year after protests over George Floyd’s murder by police in Minneapolis. Also called Jubilee Day and Black Independence Day, June 19 commemorates the end of slavery in Texas, heralded by the arrival in Galveston of Union troops who finally enforced the Emancipation Proclamation issued two and a half years prior that granted freedom to the state’s 250,000 enslaved people. A Juneteenth banner at Mount Calvary crosses out the words “July 4th” with a red X. “1865,” it reads. “Because my ancestors weren’t free in 1776.”

After the choir sang a chorus of Hallelujahs, Gregory, wearing vestments with kente cloth, began his homily. He warned that not everyone in the country wanted the message of Juneteenth to be delivered in 1865 — or today. That sentiment is familiar to Black Catholics reckoning with racial injustices, including the sins of their own church.

“Racism is not hidden anymore,” said Deacon Keith Somerville, 57, who has been at Mount Calvary for about a year. “I hope and pray that we as a nation will learn that it doesn’t matter what color we are. We are all under one God.”

[SkyDancer]

True that.

[ebb tide]

Gay Pride and BLM masses are OK in Gregory’s archdiocese.

But heaven help any priest who tries to offer a TLM in one of his parish churches.

[No name given]

Exactly, or the muzzies who enslaved them?!

[ConservativeInPA]

There’s plenty of peoples to point fingers. I had one ancestor from Scotland that was an indentured servant. Thanks England, it weighs on me everyday. I don’t know how I function. /s

[jmacusa]

True enough but the proclamation was issued in January 1863. The war was still raging at that time.

[NorthMountain]

< censored >

[Bookshelf]

How about a day to celebrate the Bataan Death March? Or one to celebrate Lindbergh’s flight? Or how about a flight over the North Pole. Or maybe a national celebration for the creation of the midget watermelon. Or first patent for a toenail clipper?

[NorthMountain]

All good ideas.

Juneteemph is really a celebration of something White people did, at their own expense in blood and treasure, for other people, with no expectation of repayment.

[nicollo]

They suggest over 50 million Africans were shipped out during the Atlantic trade alone.

Air freight? Alien transporters? Submarines?

Considering there were a total (high estimate) of 36,000 slaver voyages over the entire period of transatlantic slave trade, I'm not sure how they think there were 1400 slaves on each ship.

Unless, of course, they are thinking about the number of Africans killed in the translantic slave trade, which would then include the 5-9 times number of slaves who died inland on the way the coast for shipment to the Americas.