In 2021, TamEdwards6abc penned this essay - 'A Juneteenth journey from Texas to the White House' - on her late uncle, former Houston State Representative Al Edwards, who worked, politicked and fought to make Juneteenth a paid state holiday in Texas.
Al Edwards introduced the bill led to Texas being the first state in the country to recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday.My roots in Texas, in Houston, go back so far they seem to disappear into the soil itself. The names of generation after generation, story after story live in the house of spirits around me: Redick, a family name, for a man as large as he was gentle. Katie, regal and mean. Papa Frank and Mama Eugenia.
And freedom when it did come in 1865 was bittersweet. You could leave...but to go where? There is word that some of the newly freed began to whoop, others to run that June 19th in 1865. There is also word that some were shot as they did. The message was sent immediately: Those who had cruelly taken two years of free labor saw nothing to celebrate and didn't look kindly on those who did.
There is my uncle Al, a state representative who in his first term has worked, politicked and fought for his signature piece of legislation to pass. He has had to take on not only the good ol' boys, but also the elite in the Black community, who say his bill and its focus on the enslaved is beneath them.I can feel us as one waiting...waiting...waiting...and then a gravel cracks and there are cheers. My father has lifted me up and his body seems to boom with gladness.
Other people may not have known what Juneteenth was but that one word held chapters for me. It was cookouts and hugs, gospel brunches and jazz concerts, voter drives and political demonstrations. It was family.As I became an adult, I at first sensed this was a Houston thing. I didn't hear much about it after I left home....until I did. Blacks Texans took it with them from one ocean to the other. Sometimes it was in vogue, some years it seemed passe.
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