Juneteenth’s New Birth of Freedom
by Christopher Holshek
On Saturday, June 17th, the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club of West Point, NY, with the support of the Orange County American Legion Riders, National Service Ride, and Hudson Valley Veterans Task Force, will lead the Juneteenth Underground Railroad Freedom Ride through Orange County, NY.
The annual ride began in 2021 to commemorate the new national holiday, starting at Port Jervis, the entry point for the Underground Railroad into New York on the Delaware & Hudson Canal and later the Erie Railroad for fugitive slaves seeking freedom in the North and Canada. Before the rail line, most came over a network of turnpikes and other roads, finding refuge in homes along the way, including the Henry Green Homestead in Florida, NY. After picking up more riders in Newburgh, they rode into Highland Falls, next to the U.S. Military Academy, to join the town’s parade and celebration.
Signed into federal law two years ago, Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States on June 19th, 1865, when Gen. Gordon Granger announced to the last group of enslaved African Americans in the South, in Galveston, TX, that the Civil War had ended and they were free persons. This came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day, 1863.
Juneteenth, however, is about more than the end of slavery. It is also about the beginning of freedom, which is at the essence of American personal and collective identity. Most of those involved the Ride are veterans of the armed forces, police, firefighters, first response, and other national and public services.
We should not forget that our military is not the most fearsome fighting force in the world because of its awesome firepower and technology. It is in its embodiment of our national values in our original motto — e pluribus unum. It is, in fact, the single largest, most successful multicultural institution in history, united in the defense of the cause of freedom.
Our veterans have come from every walk of life and corner of our society. Some — like 2nd Lieutenant Emily Perez, who was the highest-ranking African-American female cadet at West Point, enshrined at the memorial park in her name near American Legion Post 1573 in Harriman, NY — have given their last full measure of devotion to that cause.
And if the military that reflects our society can come together in affirmation of that cause, time and again, so can the rest of us in its confirmation, time and again. As Americans, we should honor their example by giving them a country worth their sacrifices, especially whenever our great experiment in self-governance is threatened.
Now as then, we need to rise above our differences and work together in the service of our communities as well as our country. The value of service, above as well as for self, is a unifying as well as democratizing force for an embittered and divided society teetering on irreconcilable dysfunction.
In many ways, as a moment of reconciliation, Juneteenth represents what Lincoln called at Gettysburg “a new birth of freedom” to form that more perfect union — now, as then, a moment of opportunity in a time of great national and societal peril.
Freedom is a long, hard, and never-ending road — for all of us, and not just some. If only some of us are fully free to pursue our aspirations, then none of us really are.
But freedom also entails the responsibilities of citizenship that we must also embrace to guarantee the rights we claim, closing the gaps between the ideal of ourselves as Americans and some of its realities. That comes from us more than our leadership.
Juneteenth is another reminder of our calling to face the challenges of our time, then pass the baton in continuation of that same struggle for freedom to the next generation — moving, like motorcycles, inexorably forward, together as well as on our own.
The author, a retired U.S. Army Civil Affairs colonel, is a member of the American Legion, Executive Director and Founder of the National Service Ride Project, and author of Travels with Harley — Journeys in Search of Personal and National Identity.