Juneteenth:
Fight for Black equality continues.
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Givionne “Gee” Jordan Jr. knelt before a line of police officers in tactical gear as fellow protesters knelt at his side, some stretching their arms out to touch his back in solidarity.
“I am not your enemy, you are not my enemy,” Jordan yelled to the officers at Marion Square in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 31. “You are my family, I love you and I respect you. And I want to understand y’all.”
Seconds later, several officers stepped forward and arrested Jordan, sparking outrage from protesters who shouted: “What are you doing?” “Freedom of speech!”
Jordan, a 23-year-old Black man, said he hoped his message would promote peace and unity between protesters and police after several local businesses were looted the night before.
Instead, police held him in the county jail for one night and charged him with disobeying a lawful order. Jordan said authorities told him he did not have a permit to host a large public gathering, though he says he never planned for the protestors to join him.
“I’m tired of people saying you have rights, but then they violate your rights,” Jordan said. “I just wanted to have a conversation.”
On Friday, the country commemorates Juneteenth – a holiday that recalls June 19, 1865, when word of the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered to those still in bondage in Galveston, Texas. But while historically Juneteenth has been a day for Black people to celebrate freedom, over time, many viewed it as a day to mobilize and gain the liberties they are denied.
“We are still trying to get free from many things,” said Karlos Hill, professor of African-American studies at the University of Oklahoma. “But the principal thing we are trying to get free from is random racist violence in the form of private killings, like with Ahmaud Arbery, and state-sanctioned violence, like in the case with George Floyd.”
According to a study from the University of Michigan, Rutgers University and Washington University, about 100 in 100,000 Black males will be killed by police during their lives.
Despite slavery being outlawed for 155 years under the Thirteenth Amendment, Black Americans are still racially profiled and disproportionately killed by police, encounter voter suppression, are blocked from peacefully protesting, and face a long list of injustices in healthcare, housing, education and mass incarceration.
These inequities have come to the forefront recently, with protesters decrying the recent police killings of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky. They include the death of Arbery, who was chased by three white men and fatally shot in February.
On Monday, freedom was a major theme of the Georgia NAACP’s March on Georgia where hundreds of demonstrators of all races marched to the State Capitol.
“These are people who want to be free and believe the Constitution ought to represent all of America,” Rev. Jamal Bryant, of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, said at the event.