We Can Celebrate Both: Why Juneteenth and Independence Day Matter in Black History

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Every June and July, a familiar debate resurfaces. Some people ask why Black Americans celebrate Juneteenth when Independence Day already exists. Others wonder if recognizing Juneteenth somehow diminishes the Fourth of July.

I don't believe it does. In fact, I believe celebrating both holidays tells the complete American story.

As a genealogist, I don't see these holidays as competing with one another. I see them as chapters in the same story, each revealing a different truth about our nation's journey toward liberty.

When I look at the image of my ancestors, I don't just see names. I see people whose lives explain exactly why both days matter.

My oldest known ancestors, including Cloe Randolph (1795), Jacob May (1799), Sam Randolph (1804), Toney Tyler (1805), Charity Williams (1808), Flint Peoples (1810), and Hardy Holman (1810), were born into slavery. America had already declared its independence decades before they were born. The words "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" existed on paper, but those promises did not include them.

Most of these ancestors likely never experienced freedom.

For them, July 4 was a celebration happening around them, not one they could fully claim for themselves.

Then I see another generation of my ancestors, my 2^nd great-grandparents.

Julia Williams-Smalls (1862), Govan Hicks (1862), Pinkney Smalls (1864), and Priscilla Saxon May (1864) were born during the Civil War. They were born at the edge of one America and grew up in another. They witnessed slavery end, but they also inherited the enormous task of building lives during Reconstruction, Jim Crow, racial violence, and economic hardship.

Freedom did not erase struggle.

It simply gave them the chance to struggle as free people rather than as enslaved ones.

That distinction matters.

Frederick Douglass Understood This Better Than Anyone

In 1852, thirteen years before Juneteenth, Frederick Douglass delivered one of the most important speeches in American history: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?

Many people misunderstand what Douglass was saying.

He was not condemning the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, he admired them. What he challenged was America's failure to extend those ideals to everyone.

His message was remarkably simple.

How can a nation celebrate liberty while millions of its people remain enslaved?

For enslaved Black Americans, Independence Day highlighted a painful contradiction. The country celebrated freedom while denying it to them.

Douglass wasn't asking Americans to stop celebrating the Fourth of July.

He was asking America to become worthy of its own celebration.

His speech was less about rejecting the holiday than about calling the nation to live up to its founding principles.

What This Means For Us Today

More than 170 years later, Douglass's words still resonate within the Black community.

Today, many Black Americans celebrate Independence Day because we recognize the birth of a nation founded on extraordinary ideals and on the exploitative labor of our ancestors. And because honestly, we were not taught about Juneteenth and its significance to Black Americans’ heritage and culture. Admittedly, I only learned about it 15 years ago. We celebrate the promise of liberty, democracy, and self-government. And while we have achieved much since then, we still hope for full equality in a nation whose freedoms we fought for.

But we also celebrate Juneteenth because it marks the moment those promises finally began reaching our ancestors in a tangible way.

The Fourth of July celebrates the birth of American independence.

Juneteenth celebrates the expansion of American freedom.

One commemorates the nation's founding. The other commemorates the nation's growth toward its own ideals.

They are not opposites. They complete one another.

My Genealogy Makes This Personal

Researching my family has transformed these holidays from historical events into family memories.

Every census record I've found. Every Freedmen's Bureau document. Every death certificate. Every faded photograph. Every forgotten name.

Together they remind me that freedom was not handed to my family. It was delayed, fought for, defended, and preserved across generations.

As I have researched and learned about my Walker, Franklin, Holman, Randolph, Tyler, Peoples, Hicks, Williams, Smalls, Saxon, Woodard, Byas, Odom, and May ancestors, I see people who endured unimaginable hardship so that future generations could live differently.

Some never lived long enough to hear the words of emancipation. Others heard them but still faced discrimination, poverty, and segregation.

Yet they persevered. Because they persevered, I can tell their stories today.

Why I Celebrate Both Holidays

I celebrate Independence Day because I believe in America's founding ideals.

I celebrate Juneteenth because I know my ancestors were eventually included in those ideals, even if it came far too late.

I don't have to choose between the two.

The Fourth of July reminds me of the promise.

Juneteenth reminds me of the fulfillment of that promise for my family.

Together, they tell a more honest, more complete American story.

On the occasions when I have gathered with family on Juneteenth, I honor those whose names surround the image of my ancestors. I remember Cloe Randolph, Jacob May, Sam Randolph, Toney Tyler, Charity Williams, Hardy Holman, Flint Peoples, and so many others whose lives began in bondage but whose descendants now live in freedom.

When I celebrate Independence Day, I recognize that America is still a work in progress.

The ideals declared in 1776 were powerful enough that people like Frederick Douglass demanded they apply to everyone. Generations of Black Americans continue to help push this country closer to its own principles.

That is something worth celebrating.

Our ancestors were denied freedom. Our grandparents defended freedom. And our generation has the responsibility to remember freedom.

That is why I celebrate both. Not because history was perfect.

But because knowing the whole story allows us to appreciate how far we've come, acknowledge how far we still have to go, and ensure that the names of those who made the journey before us are never forgotten.

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"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground." ~ Frederick Douglas