S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show , in celebration of Juneteenth , we're talking about the African American heroes of emancipation. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. So think back to your history classes. I mean , what were you taught about black independence? Many of us are told that President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. But who gets left out of that narrative with Juneteenth just around the corner? We're looking at African Americans fight for liberation , which challenges the prevailing narrative around emancipation and even America's 250 years of independence. I'm joined now by T.J. Talley. He's an associate professor at the University of San Diego. Professor Talley. Welcome back to the show. Are you still an associate professor or has that changed?
S2: I literally just last week found out that I am now a regular , regular , full professor. So thank you.
S1: All right. Congratulations to you. Let's change that , professor.
S2: Thank you.
S1: Listen , so we we had you on midday last Juneteenth to talk about the complexities of the holiday. How are you thinking about Juneteenth as we approach this 250 year anniversary?
S2: Oh , yes. Right.
S1: America's independence. Yeah. I'm drawn to the separation there. But go ahead. I don't.
S2: Appreciate that. Right. And we love that Juneteenth and the 4th of July , you know , historically have always stood in this very complicated opposition , right. And so I think this year , as we hit to all of the very public hoopla of the two 50th , Juneteenth serves as a reminder of of both sort of correct lives or challenges to a really confident American narrative. Um , it reminds us what we're forgetting when we do it. And this is not new for black Americans , right? I go back to the 1850s when Frederick Douglass even said , you know what , to the slave is the 4th of July. So black people have been calling this out for a long time. Right. I think this year , Juneteenth , really one of the ways I would think about it , and I'm old enough to remember transparency slides , but I like to think of it's like putting another slide on top of those celebrations and you get these new color refractions. What does it mean for us to think about how this idea of liberty that people are really going to be trumpeting this year has always been incomplete and always been unfolding , and liberty for whom and liberty when? And so Juneteenth really reminds us to think about how are there other kinds of independence , and how have black people always been complicit and at the forefront of their own liberation?
S1: Where do these narratives you think come from? I mean , how do they become so centered on whiteness and white historical figures?
S2: I think there's there's a lot of a lot of it starts with the American self narrative right there. Is this the idea of independence is often this one of a universal or unity story , but really often takes the the sort of the melting pot analogy where we assume that everybody is just the background character in the larger mosaic of this sort of , or this musical. Right. And if we were thinking of , of America as this sort of larger figure , everybody else just gets to be slightly different colored versions of the same theme , but the theme feels universal and specific. We are supposed to see ourselves in Founding Fathers and the occasional founding Mother , who all tend to be one hue. And and we were supposed to be like , oh , that's universal. And and so the idea that these specificities of European American independence narratives are supposed to reflect all of us really does a lot of work there. It makes us assume that that is supposed to be a stand in for every person. And yet black Americans really specifically have their own relationship to freedom , their own critiques of it , and that larger narrative that we trumpet right now , the sort of anti di anti woke narrative of just saying this is the true facts , right? That that misses the idea that there have always been other people in this country with varying ideas about what freedom could be. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. Well , I want to talk more about the black historical figures who led the movement for liberation. And you know , that movement is still very much alive today. Let's not forget that. But but led that that early movement , then starting with Harriet Tubman. Um , what can you tell us about her and her fight for liberation and role in the emancipation?
S2: Yes , absolutely. So I think we've also reduced Harriet Tubman to this sort of very , you know , one note figure , right. She freed some slaves. She's there in the background doing something. But first off , that reminds us that both before and during the Civil War , Harriet Tubman took black independence seriously , black liberation seriously , as she said very famously , right , I could have freed , you know , I freed a , you know , so many slaves and I could have freed so many more. If these people knew that they were slaves. Right. So there was this fundamental story that Harriet Tubman does where she not only grasps her own freedom , she continuously takes others into freedom at the risk of her own life time and time again. But I think one of the things that people don't know is much about Harriet Tubman is about sort of her her wartime military history as well. So not only was she initially invited first off by John Brown to join in the raid and she said , no , thank you. Um , fair enough. But she , during the US Civil War , served as a spy , but then also took part in military actions , most notably on the Combahee River raid in South Carolina in 1861. So what we have here is Harriet Tubman is more than just this sort of figure , hoping that white people will give her freedom. She's actively stealing freedom for herself and others because she knew our condition was as a free people. And then she took that further as a spy , and she took it further as a military leader during the war. And it's one of the reasons why , for the rest of her life , she received a federal pension. Hmm. Yeah.
S1: Well , so she was U.S. intelligence.
S2: Absolutely was. Wow.
S1: Wow. So how does Harriet Tubman story really challenge what we've been traditionally taught?
S2: I think the narratives that we often get taught right are these of sort of magnanimous history. Right? We do have Abraham Lincoln and his very tall hat as part of our central story. Right. He is rising above , and he's the one with a group of very well-intentioned people that grant freedom to black Americans. But I think one of the best things that Harriet Tubman and others that will get to and Juneteenth in particular , what they teach us is black people have always known that we are free. The problem was not us. The problem was not us somehow being unaware of our freedom. We knew that we were a free people. We took steps , dangerous steps every day to affirm that reality to ourselves and to others. And the narrative instead we have is usually one that feels really good of , um , especially for for non-black people. The story of what we granted black people this thing. Weren't we so generous? Black people have been demanding it since 1619 , since we were first in bondage , and instead we should re narrative ize independence as the recognition of what black people have always known about themselves.
S1: But let me ask you this. The Civil War , was it rooted in a moral awakening that northern whites had , or was it rooted in economics?
S2: I , you know , one of the least fun things about having historian at a dinner party is that we will give you a a sort of complicated answer , and I'd say that two things can be true at once. Right? I'd say that , um , historians have argued that there are economic concerns that slavery was not a long term viable economic solution , and it was more economically feasible for um. For it to die out. However , that did involve , um , moral campaigning and moral changes. Right. It did involve actual campaigning around things like Uncle Tom's Cabin or literature that would have to shape enough Democratic buy in. Now , that said , um , black people were still implicitly working out their own freedom. But the Civil War absolutely was not only an economic , um , conflict , it was a social , and , I would argue , an existential conflict over what the United States wanted to be and how it imagined itself. Mhm.
S1: Now , listen , there's , there's I want to bring Frederick Douglass in here , okay. Because there's that his famous speech , um , given on the 4th of July that you alluded to. And that's especially apt with this 200 important it's important to this 250 year commemoration. Talk about that and its continued relevance today. Absolutely.
S2: Absolutely. Um , so one of the things that I've thought of this this week , right , as we've watched the increasing sort of lead up to the two 50th celebrations , we've watched , you know , reflecting pools get painted , we've watched UFC fights get put on lawns. There's a lot going on. And and there's supposed to be this sort of collective sense of , this is all of our big birthday party. Um , and one of the fun parts about speaking truth is that sometimes you ruin people's parties. And Frederick Douglass did that over 150 years ago. He showed up and hurt people's feelings. Um , showed up on the 4th of July. Um , you know , 80 years into American independence , people feeling real good about themselves. And he says , what are you doing here? This party is nonsense. It is hypocrisy in the highest order for enslaved people , for all black people. This is just absolute foolishness. What you are doing is lying to yourselves and you're lying to to us. Had he had the parlance , I'm sure he would have said , why are you gaslighting me today , everybody? But it's that moment of pointing out that this sort of overly triumphant celebration. Right. This overly triumphant celebration of we've chosen human rights and independence over a cruel empire while still holding people in bondage , making them things , um , was absolutely nonsensical to Douglas and others , and that's one reason why that speech was so popular in the 1850s , and why it still resonates now , that sort of moment of saying , you believe in this universal story , and yet it doesn't include us. Now , if I were feeling particularly generous , which on some days with enough coffee I am , I could say that the most generous reading of this would be a call on Americans to fulfill that universal story they tell themselves. And I think that that is a tactic that black Americans have deployed for as long as we have been on this continent. This sense of you believe these things about yourself to be manifest , to be true , to be universal. Well , then let's make them true. And I think that was one of the primary theses of the civil rights movement , was saying , you believe that we are all these types of people. Well , let's make that real , right? And I think that's my most generous reading , right? Where I'd say these are universal concepts that we want you to want you to live up to.
S1: Yeah , yeah. Well , in holding , Holding America to account. Yes. You know , under the Trump administration , there have been a lot of coordinated efforts to erase black history. Um , you know , whether it's through curriculum or book bans , what do you see as the consequence of that? And then I'll I'll go I'll ask you more about this.
S2: I think one of the best ways that I would analogize that right is you're going on a road trip and you find that the GPS voice is annoying and you don't want to be corrected , and you instead feel like you're going in the right direction. But the GPS tells you when you have gone the wrong way or when you need to recalculate the GPS helps you understand where you are , and I would I would argue that black voices. I'd argue that lots of voices of the American spectrum. But I'm going to talk specifically about black American voices. We in many ways can serve as that GPS. Where are you going? What's over there? I believe that you are driving into a lake , sir. That level of voice is uncomfortable. We don't want to be wrong. We would like to feel that we are charging down the highway with full confidence , going in the right direction. But part of the black historical moment , our story reminds us that we have not always been as innocent or as delightful , or as clear eyed as we would like to imagine ourselves. And so pointing that out and also pointing out moments of victory and triumph can be profound. What we've gotten instead is this idea that history is supposed to make us feel good. History is is like the banana pudding. You're just supposed to feel calmed and delighted. But history is also sometimes vegetables. You got to actually eat them. They actually an entire diet on banana pudding would make me very happy , but also very sad in the long term. And I feel instead that that complication , that difficulty , should remind us who we should be. And as you said earlier , to call us to account. Instead , we have a moment where we're just supposed to feel really good and imagine that we are the best at everything , but we haven't done any of the work. In fact , one might even argue that it's like using AI and calling yourself a writer. You've done not the actual hard work of this sort of figuring something out. You've had something presented to you , and now you don't have to do any of the sort of wrestling. Right?
S1: So like , how are how are we celebrating Juneteenth while still doing so much to hold America to account while still being so very hyper aware , right , of of the historic role that that African-Americans have played in that? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. I think for us , one of the things that would feel really easy to say , first off , would be Juneteenth has to be this moment of deep reckoning or challenge and really pointing us out there and black people , we have done this a lot , but also one of the things that is the most wonderful about Juneteenth and has been for 100 and my God , 60 years , has been this sense of joy. It has been we are lucky to be who we are. We are grateful. We are blessed. We get to find joy in , yes , the the fulfillment of our struggles , but also the reality of who we are. I was talking to a colleague at USC , my friend Doctor Kyle Brooks , lately , and he gave a really great talk last week about Juneteenth. And he said people misremember Juneteenth as the idea where enslaved African Americans were told they were free. And he looked at all of us and he looked us in the eye and he said , what's more accurate is that the federal government told Texan slaveowners that they couldn't keep owning black people. Black people already knew they were free. And so in that moment , black people's joy is not just like we've been belatedly told some facts , like we've been out of the loop. Black people's joy is an existential triumph. It's a reminding of who we are. And it says , hey , this is the power you thought you had , was not that. And we know who we are. And so if we think of Juneteenth instead , instead of a delayed freedom for black Americans and instead putting slave owners on notice , that changes the narrative less of generosity and more of claiming freedom. And so this week , as we enter Juneteenth week , take up all the month Juneteenth week. Soon it'll be Juneteenth month.
S1: Um , season. Right.
S2: Right. Yeah. Happy June season. Um , but as we enter this this week , I would think about how do we center our black historical freedom and narrative. And what does that mean for us?
S1: All right. I've been speaking with TJ Talley , professor at University of San Diego. He'll be speaking June 18th at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla. And the event is called I Said What I Said , An Evening of Black Storytelling. Professor Talley , it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on.
S2: Thanks for having me. And if you can come to the event , everybody's welcome.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
