Selected Podcast
Celebrating Juneteenth
In this special bonus episode, Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., FACS, dean of the School of Medicine, talks about the history of Juneteenth and it's cultural significance today with Annisa Latham-Brown, filmmaker and cultural advocate, and Kathryn Morgan, Ph.D., professor in the Department of African American Studies in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences.
Featuring:
Anissa Latham | Kathryn Morgan, PhD
Kathryn Morgan, PhD is Director, African American Studies Program.
Transcription:
Dr Vickers: Welcome to Checkup. It's an exciting opportunity we have today to visit with a couple of people who are a big part of the UAB community. I want to thank Dr. Kathryn Morgan and Miss Anissa Latham-Brown for joining me today. I want to get a chance for our audience to meet you and understand a little bit about your backgrounds and who you are. So I'm looking forward to our time we'll spend the day discussing this important topic around Juneteenth. Tell us a bit about who you are and your background and your connections at UAB.
Dr Kathryn Morgan: I am Kathryn Morgan. And in September, I will be celebrating my 30th year at UAB. I'm in the Criminal Justice Department, professor of Criminal Justice. I am also director of the African-American Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences. I also serve as the equity advisor for the College of Arts and Sciences. So I've been around a little while.
Dr Vickers: That's great to hear. Miss Latham-Brown?
Anissa Latham: Yes. Hi, I am a filmmaker from Birmingham, born and raised, really raised here at UAB, you know, in this building even. I actually went to UAB. I graduated in 2017 under Dr. Morgan with a bachelor in African-American Studies and a design major in cultural digital storytelling. And I sort of just do a lot of work with a lot of groups in town. I work right now with Alabama Media Group and It's a Southern Thing, it's A Southern Thing Brand, making cultural content, Southern content.
Dr Vickers: That's great sort of lifespan of works and activities and really interesting job description that you have. That should be both fun and really informative for our community. So you all have had a footprint at UAB for a significant time. Give me your impression of what our community needs to know and understand about this day that's known as Freedom Day that celebrates the emancipation of slavery on June the 19th. How did this become sort of a more important view of things around 1865 for you all? And what does that mean to you that we need to be aware of?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: Well, I can relate some personal information. I grew up in Texas. And I grew up celebrating and we called it then 19th of June. It was a big celebration for us. We had parades, we had picnics. Family reunions were scheduled around 19th of June or Juneteenth. Many times churches would schedule their revivals, you know, around that time.
It was a big celebration. Employers knew that this was a time when employees would be off work. My father was a sharecropper, but his employer knew that 19th of June, Juneteenth, was a day that he would be off. So we would celebrate it and my father's employee would always bring 24 cases of a Neha Red Soda, strawberry soda and I found later that that has significance.
But most important, I think even more so now, you know, we need to remember and reflect on this day because it is the oldest commemoration of freedom from slavery. And not only that, as we look at, you know, around us now, racial injustice, and we look at the conflicts that we experienced and the fact that many times our children, our young people, are not familiar with Juneteenth and what it means and the significance to the African-American culture. I think we need to make sure that we continue to celebrate it.
Dr Vickers: Absolutely. Miss Latham-Brown?
Anissa Latham: I would agree. I think, especially with all of the events of the last few years, it's so much more important to sort of think about where we came from and where we're going and sort of reflect on all the things that black people have been through. So that's what I find to be the most unique.
Because I remember last year when all the protests were happening and people were talking about what can we do to sort of get out of this rut of just black death and trauma and how can we celebrate? So a lot of people just said, "Let's really take Juneteenth seriously. Let's do what we can to sort of bring it forth and make it a holiday and bring it back into the sphere of consciousness within the United States. So I think I really learned a lot about it within the last year.
I grew up also sort of hearing about it, but not really celebrating it, because I didn't really understand the significance. I know when I would go to my grandmother's house in Mississippi, they would be doing different events around town and I'd be like, "Oh, that's cool. You know, that sounds fun." You know, because, you know, you're a kid, but now that I'm an adult, I'm like, "Okay, that was like a significant place in time, and that's the thing that's really important to really get out and share with other people and really reconnect to family and friends and different people and their experiences.
Dr Vickers: Well, those are, I think, tremendously important reasons. I would ask you to think about and comment on, for many people, we do understand, in fact it's important to understand our history. But for one segment of our population, it may be, "Why are we bringing up the past that often doesn't have good memories?" And the other segment, "We have to know where we've come to understand where we are going."
So how would you speak to those who are outside of Texas, who haven't lived the local significance because of where the slaves were notified some time after the rest of the country, that they were emancipated and they were free, how would you express the need for it to be broader than just Texas? And then on the other side, how would you explain the value and the importance of this for white Americans, that it be seen as something vital for blacks to recognize?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: As I reflect on Juneteenth, I really think about the resilience of our ancestors and everything that they endured, everything that they experienced, the slaves. And even two years afterwards, there were 250,000 slaves in Texas who were not free, who did not know that they were free. And so they continued on their daily tasks. They continued to do what they needed to do. So I think it's important that our young people understand and are able to see the resilience of our ancestors. They were able to understand that they endured quite a bit. They endured so many things and I think it really makes us appreciate more our culture. And it also makes white America appreciate our culture. That's what America is all about, that we have, you know, "Yes, we participate in the dominant culture, but we also have our subcultural characteristics." And I think it's important that we retain those, and that we celebrate who we are.
Being a part of diversity here at UAB, one of the things we focus on is trying to be sure that people are celebrated. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Right now, we're looking at Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I think those things are important, not just for the people involved, but also for others involved, especially our young people who need to know. Our young people have lost something and I lament quite often because they don't really understand. Even my daughters didn't understand what Juneteenth was all about and why celebrate it.
Dr Vickers: Miss Latham-Brown?
Anissa Latham: I would agree with that too. I think I would almost argue that Juneteenth isn't something that should be looked at as like a subcultural event. I think that that is just as much a part of the dominant culture because black people are as much as the dominant culture as anyone else in the United States, right? So I think that that in itself has value. And I think that that should have value for white Americans as well.
Even in the last year, the documentary I worked on, really the point of it was really to sort of bring forth the meaning of Juneteenth to a Southern audience, a Southern mostly white audience, and sort of use like those touch points, the 4th of July, we do cookouts, we do fireworks, we do all these different things to celebrate. We do the same thing for Juneteenth, but we don't celebrate it because of the fact that it's highlighting black people. So I think even bringing it forth to say this is a day that should be celebrated for not just black people, but for everybody because of how it impacts the American culture as a whole is really the point. So I think that that's really the significance of Juneteenth and why as a whole we should all sort of look at this holiday and say, you know, this is something that we should take seriously.
Dr Vickers: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. I think sometimes we in America forget that our unique strength that we possess in the world is based on our diverse sets of talents that make up of America. And we've all come here different ways, and yet we've all had different distance travel to get to where we are. And so I think you're correct that some of these holidays, particularly this one, has to move beyond the fear of creating a victim mentality or white guilt. It has to be moved beyond to say we celebrate the fact of what occurred, where we are and where we need to go. And I think that gives people the freedom to recognize, learn and understand versus to have a fear that it will create something that they can't embrace when in reality, it's for everybody to have an opportunity to do so.
So how do you all celebrate it? You talked about how your parents do it and how you think it'd be. What is your take on celebrating June 19th? What do you think is a valuable thing to do? When for many people, both majority and minority in this country, they don't quite know what it means and what it is.
Dr Kathryn Morgan: It's about family for me. And I have to admit that I went through some years when I did not celebrate. My family did not celebrate, you know, on a large scale Juneteenth. And so now, we have brought that back. So we participate. My daughter works at Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, so we will be participating there. But we will also have our celebration at home where we reflect on what went on in Texas and I'll tell them my personal stories about what went on and how we celebrated in Texas. And so it's about connecting with family for me when I think about it. And then as I reflect on those years growing up in Texas, that's what it was all about, connecting with family.
Dr Vickers: I hear you.
Anissa Latham: Same for me. I think I try to spend that time around close family as much as I can. So I like to think of it as like a 4th of July and Thanksgiving hybrid. You sort of put them together and spend time with everybody and just hang around and eat and just enjoy each other's company for the day or even the weekend or whatever it is. June 19th always ends up on a different day. So that's usually how I like to do things and my family loves to get together and just like sit around. So that's really what we do with our time. And a lot of different parades happen and like different events that are all accessible, but I think that the most important thing is just to be around people you love and that care for you.
Dr Vickers: I agree. I think that's a powerful way to do it even more so than just the public celebration itself. I mentioned this concept of distance travel. I think, as I look at my family in the purpose of doing it, it's to have those around you understand and have some sense of thankfulness of how far we've come, right? And also this speaks to the further accountability of the responsibility we have when those before us made achievements, who didn't have half as much as we've had.
And so I think there's great value both in understanding where we have come from where we've yet to go and, to some degree, although we're challenged in so many ways in comparison to our ancestors, we have huge opportunities that we need to take advantage of. I can see that being something valuable for all of America, because if any segment of America does better and continually improves. That's going to be better for America. So, I've heard you've done a short documentary on this. Can you tell us about this and what your purpose and what does it convey?
Anissa Latham: The documentary, it's very short. It's very bite-sized, so that if you were to see it in passing, you just learn something in a very short amount of time. So really the point of it was to sort of explain what is Juneteenth. What does it mean to people? Why is it important? And It's A Southern Thing Brand, so our audience is really mostly Southern people, white people. So I think that for us, it was fun to sort of think, "Okay, if I had never heard of this, how would I explain what Juneteenth is to someone who has never heard of it, has never celebrated it, had never seen anything about it?"
So it was really cool to sort of dig into the history and sort of learn about some of the traditions that had been built around the holiday, but try to make it fun and bite-size and easy to digest. And I think for our audience, the easiest thing was to sort of put it together with the 4th of July to say, "Okay, we have the 4th of July and we have June 19th as a day." So America essentially has two independence days, right? So, why is one a day that we celebrate pretty frequently every year and then one is when we've never heard of it? What is the significance and why?
So we built it around that. We actually had Dr. Jamison, Dr. DeReef Jamison was our narrator from UAB and walked through the timeline of when it started and the history behind it, all the way up from at least 1863 when the emancipation proclamation was signed, all the way until different lawmakers have tried to pass national holidays for it.
So going through that whole history and learning about the different traditions within this holiday, I think that that was really cool to be able to digest and figure out how to quickly get that point across to somebody who might not want to pay attention to that, that was really the goal around making it and why it was important. Because at the time, it was like there was so much going on and so many different issues and situations going around with trauma, black trauma and black death. And it was just really fun to say, "Okay. Here's something we can actually celebrate in the middle of all these really horrible things that are happening. We can celebrate our resilience and the fact that we're still here." And even broadening the audience and bringing up not just the white Southern audience that's watching that we know will watch, but bringing in new people, people of color that might not know about the history. That was just really fun to think about different people who could see it and make something that everyone could look at and say, "Oh, that was really cool. I didn't know that I had another holiday that I could be celebrating," you know?
Dr Vickers: So I was going to ask you in light of the fact and I think we understand there clearly probably with some thought for some, that there was a problem simply in Texas because it took them two years to hear. That was one of the prevailing thoughts in many of the black community. But in reality, if we step back today and understand in our current world of states and states rights, the federal government can make rules and rights and we've seen sometimes it has taken years for courts to actually finally implement something. So it is nothing short of a miracle that it only took two years for it to come around and it probably wouldn't have come without the end of the Civil War. The reality is that that two-year time period, we still see that today, that maybe something federally announced and put forward and state's adoptions, highly variable. And so that that's not unusual. How do you deal with the skepticism or I should say the cynicism sometimes in our own community, in the black community, of understanding the value of this holiday?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: I actually have not encountered people who doubted or was skeptical about the holiday. There were those who just didn't know anything about the holiday and initially thought that it was just something we did in Texas or something that happened in Texas. Looking at the two-year period, I looked at it, I did some research and said, "Why did it take so long? Why is it that it took two years for the general to land on Galveston Island on June 18th to read the fact that slaves were free?
And so there were different explanations. One explanation simply said, "The person who was carrying the message was murdered on the way." He got killed on the way, so he could not complete the journey. The other one said that because Texas remained in the Confederacy until 1865. They knew, but they were certainly not going to tell that. And then the other said it was intentional. It's a little bit more sinister than that. And it was intentional because slave owners wanted to keep that truth from the slaves in order to keep them in bondage. I'm not really sure why it happened, but I think right now I focus on and my hope is that we can educate our young people about the importance, because one of the things that really touched me, even looking back and reflecting on Juneteenth was the faith component of it all, that it really signaled how our ancestors really survived, that component of faith that was a part of their lives.
And so when they had the Juneteenth celebrations, they incorporated that as a part of the celebration. And so I even saw that, with revivals being held, in small towns and I'm from a very small town, they would have what they would call nights of singing. And so it would either be a revival or it would be a special night of singing. We call them concerts. Back then, we'd call them singings. But those celebrations would always encompass an element of faith. And so I think that's important for sharing with our young people, because look at what brought, look at what helped our ancestors survive.
Dr Vickers: So you remind us that there are so many cultural things and values, appreciations of faith and belief in God having an impact in that time period of moving from slavery to freedom. And we've missed the opportunity in more ways than one to really highlight that distance travels, that resilience that our leaders had, the faith that they're having in God to get them there.
There's another group of people who celebrate a freedom from slavery. And they do that in something called Passover. So the Jewish people have a very, very strong sense of the heritage and culture from a similar length of time and freedom from slavery. And they highlight both their faith and the cultural aspects of what that means for who they are back then and who they are today. I can see to some degree we've missed that opportunity to not broadly within the family structure highlight both the resilience, the values and the journey that's occurred and the faith that allowed our ancestors and us today to move forward, which is a huge value. And the question I'm going to ask you now is one that doesn't matter as much, because it really matters is whether this is taught in homes, but is this taught in schools?
Anissa Latham: No. Absolutely not.
Dr Kathryn Morgan: No, unfortunately.
Dr Vickers: Not in the history books?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: No.
Anissa Latham: There's like maybe a line in a history book and it's like, "Okay, that was a thing." There's so much more to that history that I think is missing. And it's really frustrating, especially as a black kid who goes to school, who might have heard of Juneteenth and wanting to know more and they get a sentence when there's histories of so many other things. They go into detail about the different aspects of the war and everything. And then there's just like this one sentence about Juneteenth and oh, we're celebrating and that's it, you know?
So I think that that's significant because that is reflective of the American school system as a whole. It's easy to say slavery happened and that's where our history begins. And even as it ends, it's like, "Here are all the horrible things that happen to black people," and sort of ignores the rest of our history and the intricacies of our history, the way that other parts of American history are studied. So it's important especially if they make it into a national holiday, that this history is really taught.
Dr Vickers: Well, I challenge us in the audience to understand that, in many ways, as the Jewish people, they haven't depended on governments to recognize their own past. We need to own understanding the value of where we've come from, the resilience that our people have had and the achievements we've made from that distance travel.
I'd love to see it recognized nationally, but I'd love to see it recognize internally among our own people like others have done to make sure that their next generation would never forget what their ancestors went through from a point of walk of faith, from a point of resilience and from a point of accomplishments from that distance travel. I think that's probably is valuable as anything else that we can do. So what are your plans this June 19th? What are you going to do to celebrate it? And what would you want our broader audience to know about that?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: Well, I'm going to spend time down at the Civil Rights institute. I was hoping that we could show Anissa's film to students in the Legacy Program, but we'll spend time there. I will also have friends over and family, so we can just sit around and just enjoy the time.
Can I touch on something that you said I think is so crucial? It is our responsibility to teach our children, because they may never get it in public schools. It is our responsibility. My children learned about Juneteenth from me and not from the history books. And I think it's our responsibility just as other cultures, to teach our children, "This is what happened in the history. Appreciate it. There are some positive things that came out of it."
When we look at ancestors, one of the things that really kind of touched me is that when those slaves down on that Galveston Island found out that they were free, they didn't get angry. They started celebrating and they started shouting and they got happy about it. And so I think that's something that we celebrate and that's something we have to teach our children because it allows them to forge the way forward. "This is how I go, this is how I move." And so I think it's crucial. Other cultures do it. We have to assume that responsibility for doing it as well.
Dr Vickers: It's important to recognize their response to that. And it's important to recognize the inherent benefit that we want it to have for a culture versus whether somebody else recognizes it or not. One of the other things that came fairly powerfully after that celebration and that emancipation, the literacy rate went from less than 11% to over 60% in five years, because people had a thirst to read when they weren't allowed to learn and read. Mr. Latham-Brown, how do you want to share about your celebration of this year with the rest of our community?
Anissa Latham: Well, I think now that we're-- well, I won't say that we're post vaccination, but now that we're getting there and now that I know my family is protected, I really want to spend a lot of time with them, and reflect on the year and reflect on everything that's happened. And being able to actually do that in the same room, in the same space, on sacred ground in the south, I think is just something I'm really looking forward to because this has been so much that we've lost in the last year, that I really just want to share that space with them. And especially with the young people in my family, it's to sort of say like, "We're here for a reason. We're doing this because of this history that has happened."
And I honestly think that if more young people knew about Juneteenth and sort of learned about it, like it would catch like wildfire because they're able to take things like, even when you think about like pronouns and the way people address each other, they take that and that becomes what it is. And I think that if that happens with something like Juneteenth, where it's like, "This is what this holiday is, and this is what it means," and it sort of spreads, then there's no choice, but for people to acknowledge and sort of celebrate and recognize this is our culture and this is our history.
Dr Vickers: You know, and I will challenge all those who are listening and certainly in our community, one of the things that did occur in June 19th and thereafter, is that people took advantage of the opportunity. They moved, they sought to learn and read the law that kept them from being full citizens. They took advantage. And even when they got the right to vote, they voted.
We have an opportunity now that I'm going to challenge all our listens to do. We have an opportunity to get vaccinated. Yeah. We've seen many of people of color die disproportionally. And like those who were free on June 19th to take advantage of the opportunity of freedom, we need to take advantage of the opportunity to be free from COVID by getting vaccinated.
We should understand that we will never know everything. But we should act on what we do know. What we do know is that it has killed us in a disproportionate way. And if we can avoid that, we should get a vaccine. So I'll stop with that and say thank you, Dr. Morgan, for being here and Miss Anissa Latham-Brown for being here. It's been a pleasure and a great time to share in this history and look forward to the celebration of June 19th. Thank you.
Dr Kathryn Morgan: Thank you.
Dr Vickers: Welcome to Checkup. It's an exciting opportunity we have today to visit with a couple of people who are a big part of the UAB community. I want to thank Dr. Kathryn Morgan and Miss Anissa Latham-Brown for joining me today. I want to get a chance for our audience to meet you and understand a little bit about your backgrounds and who you are. So I'm looking forward to our time we'll spend the day discussing this important topic around Juneteenth. Tell us a bit about who you are and your background and your connections at UAB.
Dr Kathryn Morgan: I am Kathryn Morgan. And in September, I will be celebrating my 30th year at UAB. I'm in the Criminal Justice Department, professor of Criminal Justice. I am also director of the African-American Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences. I also serve as the equity advisor for the College of Arts and Sciences. So I've been around a little while.
Dr Vickers: That's great to hear. Miss Latham-Brown?
Anissa Latham: Yes. Hi, I am a filmmaker from Birmingham, born and raised, really raised here at UAB, you know, in this building even. I actually went to UAB. I graduated in 2017 under Dr. Morgan with a bachelor in African-American Studies and a design major in cultural digital storytelling. And I sort of just do a lot of work with a lot of groups in town. I work right now with Alabama Media Group and It's a Southern Thing, it's A Southern Thing Brand, making cultural content, Southern content.
Dr Vickers: That's great sort of lifespan of works and activities and really interesting job description that you have. That should be both fun and really informative for our community. So you all have had a footprint at UAB for a significant time. Give me your impression of what our community needs to know and understand about this day that's known as Freedom Day that celebrates the emancipation of slavery on June the 19th. How did this become sort of a more important view of things around 1865 for you all? And what does that mean to you that we need to be aware of?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: Well, I can relate some personal information. I grew up in Texas. And I grew up celebrating and we called it then 19th of June. It was a big celebration for us. We had parades, we had picnics. Family reunions were scheduled around 19th of June or Juneteenth. Many times churches would schedule their revivals, you know, around that time.
It was a big celebration. Employers knew that this was a time when employees would be off work. My father was a sharecropper, but his employer knew that 19th of June, Juneteenth, was a day that he would be off. So we would celebrate it and my father's employee would always bring 24 cases of a Neha Red Soda, strawberry soda and I found later that that has significance.
But most important, I think even more so now, you know, we need to remember and reflect on this day because it is the oldest commemoration of freedom from slavery. And not only that, as we look at, you know, around us now, racial injustice, and we look at the conflicts that we experienced and the fact that many times our children, our young people, are not familiar with Juneteenth and what it means and the significance to the African-American culture. I think we need to make sure that we continue to celebrate it.
Dr Vickers: Absolutely. Miss Latham-Brown?
Anissa Latham: I would agree. I think, especially with all of the events of the last few years, it's so much more important to sort of think about where we came from and where we're going and sort of reflect on all the things that black people have been through. So that's what I find to be the most unique.
Because I remember last year when all the protests were happening and people were talking about what can we do to sort of get out of this rut of just black death and trauma and how can we celebrate? So a lot of people just said, "Let's really take Juneteenth seriously. Let's do what we can to sort of bring it forth and make it a holiday and bring it back into the sphere of consciousness within the United States. So I think I really learned a lot about it within the last year.
I grew up also sort of hearing about it, but not really celebrating it, because I didn't really understand the significance. I know when I would go to my grandmother's house in Mississippi, they would be doing different events around town and I'd be like, "Oh, that's cool. You know, that sounds fun." You know, because, you know, you're a kid, but now that I'm an adult, I'm like, "Okay, that was like a significant place in time, and that's the thing that's really important to really get out and share with other people and really reconnect to family and friends and different people and their experiences.
Dr Vickers: Well, those are, I think, tremendously important reasons. I would ask you to think about and comment on, for many people, we do understand, in fact it's important to understand our history. But for one segment of our population, it may be, "Why are we bringing up the past that often doesn't have good memories?" And the other segment, "We have to know where we've come to understand where we are going."
So how would you speak to those who are outside of Texas, who haven't lived the local significance because of where the slaves were notified some time after the rest of the country, that they were emancipated and they were free, how would you express the need for it to be broader than just Texas? And then on the other side, how would you explain the value and the importance of this for white Americans, that it be seen as something vital for blacks to recognize?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: As I reflect on Juneteenth, I really think about the resilience of our ancestors and everything that they endured, everything that they experienced, the slaves. And even two years afterwards, there were 250,000 slaves in Texas who were not free, who did not know that they were free. And so they continued on their daily tasks. They continued to do what they needed to do. So I think it's important that our young people understand and are able to see the resilience of our ancestors. They were able to understand that they endured quite a bit. They endured so many things and I think it really makes us appreciate more our culture. And it also makes white America appreciate our culture. That's what America is all about, that we have, you know, "Yes, we participate in the dominant culture, but we also have our subcultural characteristics." And I think it's important that we retain those, and that we celebrate who we are.
Being a part of diversity here at UAB, one of the things we focus on is trying to be sure that people are celebrated. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Right now, we're looking at Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I think those things are important, not just for the people involved, but also for others involved, especially our young people who need to know. Our young people have lost something and I lament quite often because they don't really understand. Even my daughters didn't understand what Juneteenth was all about and why celebrate it.
Dr Vickers: Miss Latham-Brown?
Anissa Latham: I would agree with that too. I think I would almost argue that Juneteenth isn't something that should be looked at as like a subcultural event. I think that that is just as much a part of the dominant culture because black people are as much as the dominant culture as anyone else in the United States, right? So I think that that in itself has value. And I think that that should have value for white Americans as well.
Even in the last year, the documentary I worked on, really the point of it was really to sort of bring forth the meaning of Juneteenth to a Southern audience, a Southern mostly white audience, and sort of use like those touch points, the 4th of July, we do cookouts, we do fireworks, we do all these different things to celebrate. We do the same thing for Juneteenth, but we don't celebrate it because of the fact that it's highlighting black people. So I think even bringing it forth to say this is a day that should be celebrated for not just black people, but for everybody because of how it impacts the American culture as a whole is really the point. So I think that that's really the significance of Juneteenth and why as a whole we should all sort of look at this holiday and say, you know, this is something that we should take seriously.
Dr Vickers: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. I think sometimes we in America forget that our unique strength that we possess in the world is based on our diverse sets of talents that make up of America. And we've all come here different ways, and yet we've all had different distance travel to get to where we are. And so I think you're correct that some of these holidays, particularly this one, has to move beyond the fear of creating a victim mentality or white guilt. It has to be moved beyond to say we celebrate the fact of what occurred, where we are and where we need to go. And I think that gives people the freedom to recognize, learn and understand versus to have a fear that it will create something that they can't embrace when in reality, it's for everybody to have an opportunity to do so.
So how do you all celebrate it? You talked about how your parents do it and how you think it'd be. What is your take on celebrating June 19th? What do you think is a valuable thing to do? When for many people, both majority and minority in this country, they don't quite know what it means and what it is.
Dr Kathryn Morgan: It's about family for me. And I have to admit that I went through some years when I did not celebrate. My family did not celebrate, you know, on a large scale Juneteenth. And so now, we have brought that back. So we participate. My daughter works at Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, so we will be participating there. But we will also have our celebration at home where we reflect on what went on in Texas and I'll tell them my personal stories about what went on and how we celebrated in Texas. And so it's about connecting with family for me when I think about it. And then as I reflect on those years growing up in Texas, that's what it was all about, connecting with family.
Dr Vickers: I hear you.
Anissa Latham: Same for me. I think I try to spend that time around close family as much as I can. So I like to think of it as like a 4th of July and Thanksgiving hybrid. You sort of put them together and spend time with everybody and just hang around and eat and just enjoy each other's company for the day or even the weekend or whatever it is. June 19th always ends up on a different day. So that's usually how I like to do things and my family loves to get together and just like sit around. So that's really what we do with our time. And a lot of different parades happen and like different events that are all accessible, but I think that the most important thing is just to be around people you love and that care for you.
Dr Vickers: I agree. I think that's a powerful way to do it even more so than just the public celebration itself. I mentioned this concept of distance travel. I think, as I look at my family in the purpose of doing it, it's to have those around you understand and have some sense of thankfulness of how far we've come, right? And also this speaks to the further accountability of the responsibility we have when those before us made achievements, who didn't have half as much as we've had.
And so I think there's great value both in understanding where we have come from where we've yet to go and, to some degree, although we're challenged in so many ways in comparison to our ancestors, we have huge opportunities that we need to take advantage of. I can see that being something valuable for all of America, because if any segment of America does better and continually improves. That's going to be better for America. So, I've heard you've done a short documentary on this. Can you tell us about this and what your purpose and what does it convey?
Anissa Latham: The documentary, it's very short. It's very bite-sized, so that if you were to see it in passing, you just learn something in a very short amount of time. So really the point of it was to sort of explain what is Juneteenth. What does it mean to people? Why is it important? And It's A Southern Thing Brand, so our audience is really mostly Southern people, white people. So I think that for us, it was fun to sort of think, "Okay, if I had never heard of this, how would I explain what Juneteenth is to someone who has never heard of it, has never celebrated it, had never seen anything about it?"
So it was really cool to sort of dig into the history and sort of learn about some of the traditions that had been built around the holiday, but try to make it fun and bite-size and easy to digest. And I think for our audience, the easiest thing was to sort of put it together with the 4th of July to say, "Okay, we have the 4th of July and we have June 19th as a day." So America essentially has two independence days, right? So, why is one a day that we celebrate pretty frequently every year and then one is when we've never heard of it? What is the significance and why?
So we built it around that. We actually had Dr. Jamison, Dr. DeReef Jamison was our narrator from UAB and walked through the timeline of when it started and the history behind it, all the way up from at least 1863 when the emancipation proclamation was signed, all the way until different lawmakers have tried to pass national holidays for it.
So going through that whole history and learning about the different traditions within this holiday, I think that that was really cool to be able to digest and figure out how to quickly get that point across to somebody who might not want to pay attention to that, that was really the goal around making it and why it was important. Because at the time, it was like there was so much going on and so many different issues and situations going around with trauma, black trauma and black death. And it was just really fun to say, "Okay. Here's something we can actually celebrate in the middle of all these really horrible things that are happening. We can celebrate our resilience and the fact that we're still here." And even broadening the audience and bringing up not just the white Southern audience that's watching that we know will watch, but bringing in new people, people of color that might not know about the history. That was just really fun to think about different people who could see it and make something that everyone could look at and say, "Oh, that was really cool. I didn't know that I had another holiday that I could be celebrating," you know?
Dr Vickers: So I was going to ask you in light of the fact and I think we understand there clearly probably with some thought for some, that there was a problem simply in Texas because it took them two years to hear. That was one of the prevailing thoughts in many of the black community. But in reality, if we step back today and understand in our current world of states and states rights, the federal government can make rules and rights and we've seen sometimes it has taken years for courts to actually finally implement something. So it is nothing short of a miracle that it only took two years for it to come around and it probably wouldn't have come without the end of the Civil War. The reality is that that two-year time period, we still see that today, that maybe something federally announced and put forward and state's adoptions, highly variable. And so that that's not unusual. How do you deal with the skepticism or I should say the cynicism sometimes in our own community, in the black community, of understanding the value of this holiday?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: I actually have not encountered people who doubted or was skeptical about the holiday. There were those who just didn't know anything about the holiday and initially thought that it was just something we did in Texas or something that happened in Texas. Looking at the two-year period, I looked at it, I did some research and said, "Why did it take so long? Why is it that it took two years for the general to land on Galveston Island on June 18th to read the fact that slaves were free?
And so there were different explanations. One explanation simply said, "The person who was carrying the message was murdered on the way." He got killed on the way, so he could not complete the journey. The other one said that because Texas remained in the Confederacy until 1865. They knew, but they were certainly not going to tell that. And then the other said it was intentional. It's a little bit more sinister than that. And it was intentional because slave owners wanted to keep that truth from the slaves in order to keep them in bondage. I'm not really sure why it happened, but I think right now I focus on and my hope is that we can educate our young people about the importance, because one of the things that really touched me, even looking back and reflecting on Juneteenth was the faith component of it all, that it really signaled how our ancestors really survived, that component of faith that was a part of their lives.
And so when they had the Juneteenth celebrations, they incorporated that as a part of the celebration. And so I even saw that, with revivals being held, in small towns and I'm from a very small town, they would have what they would call nights of singing. And so it would either be a revival or it would be a special night of singing. We call them concerts. Back then, we'd call them singings. But those celebrations would always encompass an element of faith. And so I think that's important for sharing with our young people, because look at what brought, look at what helped our ancestors survive.
Dr Vickers: So you remind us that there are so many cultural things and values, appreciations of faith and belief in God having an impact in that time period of moving from slavery to freedom. And we've missed the opportunity in more ways than one to really highlight that distance travels, that resilience that our leaders had, the faith that they're having in God to get them there.
There's another group of people who celebrate a freedom from slavery. And they do that in something called Passover. So the Jewish people have a very, very strong sense of the heritage and culture from a similar length of time and freedom from slavery. And they highlight both their faith and the cultural aspects of what that means for who they are back then and who they are today. I can see to some degree we've missed that opportunity to not broadly within the family structure highlight both the resilience, the values and the journey that's occurred and the faith that allowed our ancestors and us today to move forward, which is a huge value. And the question I'm going to ask you now is one that doesn't matter as much, because it really matters is whether this is taught in homes, but is this taught in schools?
Anissa Latham: No. Absolutely not.
Dr Kathryn Morgan: No, unfortunately.
Dr Vickers: Not in the history books?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: No.
Anissa Latham: There's like maybe a line in a history book and it's like, "Okay, that was a thing." There's so much more to that history that I think is missing. And it's really frustrating, especially as a black kid who goes to school, who might have heard of Juneteenth and wanting to know more and they get a sentence when there's histories of so many other things. They go into detail about the different aspects of the war and everything. And then there's just like this one sentence about Juneteenth and oh, we're celebrating and that's it, you know?
So I think that that's significant because that is reflective of the American school system as a whole. It's easy to say slavery happened and that's where our history begins. And even as it ends, it's like, "Here are all the horrible things that happen to black people," and sort of ignores the rest of our history and the intricacies of our history, the way that other parts of American history are studied. So it's important especially if they make it into a national holiday, that this history is really taught.
Dr Vickers: Well, I challenge us in the audience to understand that, in many ways, as the Jewish people, they haven't depended on governments to recognize their own past. We need to own understanding the value of where we've come from, the resilience that our people have had and the achievements we've made from that distance travel.
I'd love to see it recognized nationally, but I'd love to see it recognize internally among our own people like others have done to make sure that their next generation would never forget what their ancestors went through from a point of walk of faith, from a point of resilience and from a point of accomplishments from that distance travel. I think that's probably is valuable as anything else that we can do. So what are your plans this June 19th? What are you going to do to celebrate it? And what would you want our broader audience to know about that?
Dr Kathryn Morgan: Well, I'm going to spend time down at the Civil Rights institute. I was hoping that we could show Anissa's film to students in the Legacy Program, but we'll spend time there. I will also have friends over and family, so we can just sit around and just enjoy the time.
Can I touch on something that you said I think is so crucial? It is our responsibility to teach our children, because they may never get it in public schools. It is our responsibility. My children learned about Juneteenth from me and not from the history books. And I think it's our responsibility just as other cultures, to teach our children, "This is what happened in the history. Appreciate it. There are some positive things that came out of it."
When we look at ancestors, one of the things that really kind of touched me is that when those slaves down on that Galveston Island found out that they were free, they didn't get angry. They started celebrating and they started shouting and they got happy about it. And so I think that's something that we celebrate and that's something we have to teach our children because it allows them to forge the way forward. "This is how I go, this is how I move." And so I think it's crucial. Other cultures do it. We have to assume that responsibility for doing it as well.
Dr Vickers: It's important to recognize their response to that. And it's important to recognize the inherent benefit that we want it to have for a culture versus whether somebody else recognizes it or not. One of the other things that came fairly powerfully after that celebration and that emancipation, the literacy rate went from less than 11% to over 60% in five years, because people had a thirst to read when they weren't allowed to learn and read. Mr. Latham-Brown, how do you want to share about your celebration of this year with the rest of our community?
Anissa Latham: Well, I think now that we're-- well, I won't say that we're post vaccination, but now that we're getting there and now that I know my family is protected, I really want to spend a lot of time with them, and reflect on the year and reflect on everything that's happened. And being able to actually do that in the same room, in the same space, on sacred ground in the south, I think is just something I'm really looking forward to because this has been so much that we've lost in the last year, that I really just want to share that space with them. And especially with the young people in my family, it's to sort of say like, "We're here for a reason. We're doing this because of this history that has happened."
And I honestly think that if more young people knew about Juneteenth and sort of learned about it, like it would catch like wildfire because they're able to take things like, even when you think about like pronouns and the way people address each other, they take that and that becomes what it is. And I think that if that happens with something like Juneteenth, where it's like, "This is what this holiday is, and this is what it means," and it sort of spreads, then there's no choice, but for people to acknowledge and sort of celebrate and recognize this is our culture and this is our history.
Dr Vickers: You know, and I will challenge all those who are listening and certainly in our community, one of the things that did occur in June 19th and thereafter, is that people took advantage of the opportunity. They moved, they sought to learn and read the law that kept them from being full citizens. They took advantage. And even when they got the right to vote, they voted.
We have an opportunity now that I'm going to challenge all our listens to do. We have an opportunity to get vaccinated. Yeah. We've seen many of people of color die disproportionally. And like those who were free on June 19th to take advantage of the opportunity of freedom, we need to take advantage of the opportunity to be free from COVID by getting vaccinated.
We should understand that we will never know everything. But we should act on what we do know. What we do know is that it has killed us in a disproportionate way. And if we can avoid that, we should get a vaccine. So I'll stop with that and say thank you, Dr. Morgan, for being here and Miss Anissa Latham-Brown for being here. It's been a pleasure and a great time to share in this history and look forward to the celebration of June 19th. Thank you.
Dr Kathryn Morgan: Thank you.