Full transcript of “Historically Incorrect, Insulting: Here's Why One Black Historian Opposes A Juneteenth Nat'l Holiday”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:04 [Music] i want to bring up my next guest uh he is uh out of uh washington state um he is uh of course um um uh former head of the uh seattle uh king county naacp carl mack is a historian uh carl um [Music] your your issues with juneteenth your thoughts about this action today what are the issues i think they're historically absolutely incorrect and i think they're insulting to us as a people so who's incorrect those who
0:50 the congress that that that bill passing was absolutely incorrect so what should have been okay so the bill says and what is being taught and i'll i'll just give you specifically in the state of washington and first of all roland let me be clear i have absolutely no problem with juneteenth my problem is the historical efforts that are being made and what's being surrounded i call it the misrepresentation of june jane and so what happened in the state of washington is they passed similar legislation and this legislation has been passed a lot throughout this country and in this state of washington similar to what they just did in congress they said that the legislature intends to designate juneteenth as a statewide holiday celebrating the end of chattel slavery
1:37 so what people have been taught about juneteenth is that those of our ancestors who was enslaved in galveston texas number one they were the last blacks to be enslaved in this country number two that they got the word a year and a half late after president lincoln had signed the emancipation proclamation both of those things historically are just incorrect there is no other way to put it now all one has to do is to understand this slavery ended in this country on december 6 1865 six months after june 10. now going back to the emancipation proclamation which everybody seems to get so twisted keep in mind what lincoln said lincoln
2:22 said for those states in rebellion against the union and there were 11 of them but in the emancipation proclamation lincoln only mentioned 10 of them and the only reason he only mentioned 10 is because the 11th state that he did mention was tennessee he didn't mention them because the union already had control of tennessee so he said for those states in rebellion against the union slavery is now free uh or over now keep in mind there were four border states in which slavery was still practiced those border states were maryland missouri kentucky tenne uh kentucky and delaware so when lincoln said that to him i want you to imagine this and you ha don't you have to imagine this is just a
3:08 fact when those 11 states left the union they didn't act as 11 individual states they formed the confederacy and when they formed the confederacy in effect they formed their own nation which means they elected a president jefferson davis they elected a vice president alexander stevens of georgia they wrote a confederate constitution they were their own nation brother roland so when lincoln issue quote unquote an executive order trying to tell them what to do that's like the prime minister of canada trying to tell the united states citizens what to do he didn't have any authorization that's why i took a war so that's why i'm saying to you that when the news is that they got the word
3:54 a year and a half late it didn't matter the confederacy was their own nation they didn't give a damn what the united states said what lincoln said that's why it took the war now as far as them being the last blacks enslaved i just heard your last guest i've heard all of you say how important it is to get it right today there's a movement that has swept this country that we should all be proud of black lives matter black lives matter do we think that black lives just started mattering because let's go back to what happened with the emancipation proclamation lincoln said that in those states not in rebellion against the union slavery is still legal keep that going two of those states were delaware and
4:41 kentucky two of them was maryland and missouri and keep in mind west virginia wasn't a state when the civil war started it became a state after virginia seceded and those 48 counties didn't want to secede so they became a state after the civil war so now let's look at those five border states maryland on november 1st 1864 before the civil war ended maryland abolished slavery missouri on january 11 1865 before the civil war ended they abolished slavery west virginia the newly entered slave state on february 3rd 1865 ended slavery the civil war ends on april 9 1865 two months later granger rides into galveston texas and
5:26 issues general order number three which we now call june 19. i asked you to remember what was going on in kentucky and delaware after the civil war what was going on in kentucky and delaware after juneteenth i'll tell you roland there were 225 000 of our ancestors still enslaved and they did not taste freedom until december 6 1865 when georgia became the 27th state to ratify the 13th amendment that is my problem with what is going on in states all across this country and that is my problem about what just happened in the united states congress if you want to designate a date in which all black folks can celebrate freedom that date as far as i'm concerned as far as
6:12 history appears to be concerned it's december 6th because that is the day in which georgia ratified the 13th amendment now as if as it applies to delaware and kentucky keep this in mind roland delaware didn't ratify the 13th amendment until 1901. kentucky ratified the 13th amendment in 1976 and the state that i'm from mississippi mississippi didn't ratify the 13th amendment until february 7 2013. so do i have a problem with juneteenth absolutely not do i have a problem with the historical right every every part of that i got a problem and and i think that has been first of all like for years we were all linking free to slaves well again and those there were people who took exception to uh
6:59 larone bennett and others who who corrected uh who corrected that uh frankly what we have is we have folks in this country with with a bumper sticker version of history uh the reason i think um you see the focus on juneteenth is i think it goes back to this here because texas became the first state to actually make it a state holiday and so what then happened was there were other people who wanted to recognize that fact so all of a sudden juneteenth events then went out june for everybody to understand juneteenth was a texas holiday to your point which you just laid out that was specific to texas when general granger arrived on the shores of galveston uh of the beach in galveston
7:44 and delivered uh uh that that particular announcement i think what happened was other people gravitated to that and then it then became this sort of all-encompassing moment to say okay here's something that actually recognizes uh uh slavery or the ending of slavery in this country but you're absolutely right and i think now i believe now the opportunity is now is to in the words of paul harvey now tell the rest of the story absolutely so so listen so so so roland the thing that you're you're the the congressman i think is johnson i'm not sure your last guest was uh former senator doug jones okay doug jones what you and doug jones agreed on a lot was
8:29 it's important to get it right today we as black folks want to say black lives matter then what about the 225 000 now i will i will i will give you just a little pushback on why june 10th took off i think part of what you said is right but the rest of the story is this we all know that that that our history has been taught has not been taught right so so to what doug jones said there's a lot of black folks that don't know the scholarship of our experience in this country oh no doubt and so once we didn't know it and somebody comes in and tells the the myth that these were the last blacks and slaves they got the news a year and a half later well we just took off and ran with it and then now rolling on on may 25th of 2020
9:17 well that gave another steroid injection to the myth behind juneteenth and that date was the day that rodney king uh uh george floyd george floyd was murdered now you got white guilt everywhere white folks want to do something damn it let's just make june take the holiday that's fine but it didn't start with that i would i would tell you this go back and look at the 105th congress of the united states there was a senator from the state of mississippi named trent lott who introduced legislation similar to what was just passed and it clearly said june 19th the day that slavery officially came to an end then over in the house in that same year i believe it was it was uh 97 in that same year now you had
10:04 jc watts in the house introduced a a joint resolution that said the exact same thing that juneteenth is the date on which slavery finally came to an end so i'm not trying to play the technicalities here but what i am saying is in the spirit of harriet tubman right they asked that sister baby why would you keep going back you free and she said how could i be free when my people ain't free well how in the hell can we celebrate juneteenth as the day on which slavery ended when there were over 225 000 of our folks still enslaved in the state of delaware and kentucky well i dare say that's my problem i i dare say the same as how we celebrate july 4th as independence day uh and as frederick douglass said what does this mean
10:51 uh to the slave on july 4th and so uh but here's the last point i make and this is very simple what you laid out is why you got to have black owned media is what because because here's the piece the bottom line is and i look i you already see it i know abc is having a big juneteenth celebrate uh prime time uh show all of a sudden trust me you're about to see uh businesses all across america and here's the deal i'm just laying in the cut because i'm telling you every company that wants to try to profit off of juneteenth i'm gonna sit i'm gonna hit all i'm saying where's your black spin where's your black owned spin see that's the other deal it's just like if a business out there
11:36 all of a sudden dropping kawans of commercials you gotta be asking how much money are you spending with black owned companies not giving away so we got so we we this is where why we also have to have our own media where we can actually have this conversation because this ain't gonna happen on msnbc cnn fox news abc nbc cbs not make no mistake about it and to your point let me say this i know that you know the bennett family who owns the seattle media and krx okay so i wrote an op-ed piece about what i just explained to you all not one white newspaper would pick it up but that got picked up by the seattle medium the black owned press and i've always been a huge supporter in the same way i listened to the pride that you all had
12:21 about the legislation being passed but now we as brothers and sisters right now on your program are going through a learning moment where we're going down maybe i didn't know what brother mike was saying but we're respecting that and look i don't expect you to trust what i'm saying just go back and verify no no no no no but i'm saying but here's the moment to me this is the moment uh and i'm gonna bring my i'm gonna bring my penalty after this the moment for us is this here this is now just like that white retired lieutenant colonel when he gave a speech a memorial day and when he told the history memorial day and they cut his microphone because he talked about it it was freed's it was actually slaves who actually uh started memorial day and then they cut his mic this is where we this is now we now use the bully pulpit and so when folks say hey any slavery i
13:08 actually that's not the truth so so here's so here's my whole deal i'ma this is where we can use the day to say first of all there should be a there should be a day that speaks to slavery in in america but we also correct the story because because even when we use the word uh we were freed we actually weren't that's why i say all the time that we were tech for the first time black people were technically fully free americans in 1970 it took going through jim crow the voting rights act the civil rights act the fair housing act took all of those different things that's why i say technically fully free and that leads to a whole
13:55 other conversation about freedom uh but you know i'll say this roland i'll i'll give you just a little pushback there is no debate over what channel slavery was oh yes no no i got it as such that's why i said freedom that's what i said freedom right right but but but there is no debate where chattel slavery was and all i'm saying is on december 6 1865 that is the day that child slavery in this country ended for our ancestors got it and what i'm saying is we should use the day to tell the whole story and not keep allowing his story to be told carl mac i appreciate it thanks a lot no problem my brother thanks go to my phone with my uncultured video in just one moment
14:46 [Music] and different about it you know it's secure and then of course you got all the systems still being good for me
15:37 all right folks each and every single day here on roland martin unfortunately we're going to feature that uh essence festival coca-cola throwback moment leading up to of course uh this year's 2021 virtual essence festival because of covet they're not having the big gathering in new orleans but they will be virtual uh and so uh on june 25th june 26th and june 27th two two weekends june 26th june 27th july 3rd july 4th uh essence festival will be virtual uh you can simply go to their youtube channel the facebook page and go to essence.com to actually watch it you're going to have the workshops in the daytimes beginning at 2pm then of course the concert's beginning at 6 p.m eastern every single night going until 10 p.m and so we look forward uh to sharing with you some of our throwback moments that of course with shaka khan for the
16:23 2016 essence festival uh so we've got some great stuff dipping into uh my archives to show you and we're gonna do that every single day right here on roland martin filter and we're gonna be sharing photos on my social media so go to instagram go to facebook and twitter snapchat you'll be able to see uh those throwback moments as well and so we're gonna also we'll give you guys an email share some of your essence festival throwback photos and video that we're going to be sharing with the audit and we certainly look forward to doing that [Music]
17:24 you
