Family, Oklahoma, and Juneteenth

Growing up Black in Oklahoma and participating, in the local Juneteenth celebrations was always filled with joy and little pain. Celebrating Juneteenth was the fourth of July, for any African Americans, living in Texas, Oklahoma, or on the west coast. In fact, it was better! I enjoyed it more because of the extended family elements. Firecrackers, great music, food for days, liquor, weed, drunk relatives, and whole lotta love. The goat, the pig, the cow, the chicken, and fried fish all made appearances. The food was never an issue and great cooking is a family trait. It just is. I particularly loved grilled goat. Juneteenth is the one time to eat goat meat. One other quite community secret is we would publicly, eat watermelon, and drink ice-cold flavored sodas, and don't feel shameful, on Juneteenth. Imagine attending school and mean spirited, grinning white boys and girls, run up ask you like watermelon like it’s a popup quiz test. Your answer, grinning back. Hell NO.

Black negative stereotypes have been exported all over the world and we are damaged from these negative images. Hell yeah, I like fried chicken, watermelon, and grape flavored sodas. You won’t catch me eating fried chicken, with a fork at a fine dining restaurant either. I eat fried chicken just as our ancestors did. With both hands greasy. While I’m at it, it’s grits and sugar. In addition to the food and family, somebody’s well-respected sanctified potato salads always blessed us, really good. There were always loaded guns around the gathering. Firearms were well represented… Because I’m a Prince, Franklin, James, and Willis and well because I’m a Prince, Franklin, James, and Willis. Our family Clan is about one and one-half generations from the farm.

I grew up knowing, I had the family names for protection, throughout the entire state of Oklahoma. I grew up surrounded by the Bible, food, and guns. The first one was traumatic and the latter two were my joy. I loved shooting guns and I loved to eat. For the men in my family, having a gun was a rite of passage. My grandfather and my great Uncle Nealy Prince would let me shoot their guns. I have blood memories of their teachings and passed that down to my brother Isiah. I remember the joy, I felt teaching him how to load and shoot a gun. We practiced and shot at the foot of my grandmother's grave. Shooting a gun was a ”manhood” indicator. Well not really. In addition to the weapons arsenal on Juneteenth, hoopties with white walls boomed, the sounds of the latest eight-track music, and we also, listened to the hottest music from regional AM/FM radio stations. I particularly enjoyed listening to KKDA, Soul 73 out of Dallas, Texas. On a good night, we could listen to stations as far away as Memphis, Tennessee, and Jackson, Mississippi. It felt exotic listening to a station way over in Tennessee and Mississippi.

I grew up hearing our elders describe prideful stories of how it took two years six months from President Lincoln’s emancipation declaration to the execution of the emancipation order, on Galveston Island. It took two years and six months for Texas slaves to receive the emancipation order that declared ” we’s free.” Damn.

I was always curious about the survival of such brutality and the inhumanity of slavery. My mind always wanders to what atrocities occurred during those two years and six months. Driving through eastern Oklahoma on Highway 70, my eye sees beauty, but my mind wonders about the bodies never recovered and missing. I hear their spirits crying. They are not at peace.

The Eastern Oklahoma landscape is filled with Pine trees, beautiful lakes, and racist white people. I never drive east, at night in Oklahoma. The only exception is the interstate. My mind slips back, wondering how they lived and the constant brutality of white folks. The only person, I ever heard about growing up that had ever got over, with white folks was my granddaddy he was treated as an equal. James “Buster Willis. He often sent me to pick up a package and cigars, at the grocery. I never took the money. I just picked up his package. I did it in til my momma made me stop picking up granddaddy’s liquor. I was only or 8 or 9, walking to Mr. boils grocery store. I always got candy out of that deal. Granddaddy once told me, “a white boy kept bothering him, and he stabbed, him up real good.” He also said, his brother’s (uncle Fletcher and Lonnie) hid him out for a few months, after the stabbing. He said a few months later, he saw, that the same white boy, and the white boy, asked if he was the nigga, who stabbed him. My Granddaddy, says he said, hell ya, I’m that Mutha fucka, who stabbed you and if you keep fuckin with me, I go stab you again.” I want to believe it’s true. I really do. My grandfather was a mythical sexist of his time. All men were during his era. He was the Black Archie Bunker. I knew, my grandfather was biracial, I just never knew it was that much. My grandfather, indeed used his privilege and access, for the greater good of the community. I wanted to be like my granddaddy, a mason wearing a bow tie and all. Just not the sexist part, tho.

Ralph Ellison, the famous African American writer born in Oklahoma City in 1914, wrote a novel titled ”Juneteenth” (1999). In the novel, the fictional characters recall a Juneteenth celebration that also emphasized preaching by several ministers. In the depression of the 1930s, the celebration declined as some African Americans migrated westward to California. Yet they carried Juneteenth with them. In one Los Angeles neighborhood, it survived as the “Oklahoma Picnic” on June 19. My Oklahoma cousins in South Central, LA, Seattle, Oakland, Portland, Dallas Texas, Wild Horse, Oklahoma, and Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, all do the damn thing” on Juneteenth.

My vivid memories of Juneteenth celebrations include attending a”park-like” location in an area called ”the hill,” in southeast Ardmore and also on Hickory street in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. I preferred Hickory street because every house was welcoming and most were blood relatives. In my lifetime, I can’t ever remember my mom taking us to the hill. It wasn’t safe for women and children. Nigga park was the name the streets gave the park. The park was a sunburned straw-like, covered park, sparsely decorated with several old picnic tables, dirt drives around that mirrored a 400-meter track full of mud holes. That four acres of segregated land had no real reason to ever be called a recreational park. In the late 90’s it was used to promote the Tiger Woods adolescent minority golf program. Imagine that. Tiger Woods and ”Nigga Park.” We accepted the park and the name. The park was the worst of the worst.

I, Too
BY LANGSTON HUGHES

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed —

I, too, am America.

Growing up in Oklahoma, my nurturing experience was steeped in Black Power affirming messages, and a can-do community. Whatever, the thing was there was support. Songs that had words like ”Black butterfly, Say it loud I’m black and I’m proud, told me I was beautiful and powerful. The paradox to the negative black messages, were the clarion calls from the cannons of Donny Hathaway, Aretha Franklin, Denise Williams, and other gifted Black artists. Their uplifting music was the soundtrack of my life. They constantly reminded me, that I was Young. Gifted, and Black. Jessie clenched fist told us ”we were somebody, James Brown told us to ”Say it loud, ” and Denise Williams told us in Duke Ellington’s beautifully written song, ”Black Butterfly, sailed across the waters, tell your sons and daughters what the struggle brings.” In my opinion, self-affirming and life-giving messages, like those, are the antidotes to negative messages. Don’t let those negative MESSAGES seep into your DNA. Black is beautiful. Incubate and manifest, positive messages of self-pride and self-love.

In the presence of slavery and horrid living conditions, our ancestor's sill survived. They created Le hog head cheese, fine dining restaurants, call it patè, Oaktails, is now too damn high, and collard green cost is getting out of control. Cultural appropriation is driving the cost up!

Speak life-affirming energy into your life. We were, born into this world with an abundance of hope on top of hope. How else would we have survived 400 years of brutality? Call the name of an ancestor today.

In the 1960s, Rev. C.L Franklin, Aretha’s, daddy had a sermon “The Eagle stirreth his Nest.” my stepdad played that sermon over and over. I loved the sermons message. The sermon describes an eagle that lived with chickens, for so long it thought, it was a chicken. Rev. Franklin says, a passer-by, stoped on the farm one day and saw a different bird with the chickens and told the chicken farmer, one bird in his chicken coop was an eagle. Imagine that. The chicken farmer said he knew the bird had always displayed different behaviors. The passer-by asked if he could take the eagle to a hill and let him loose. The farmer, says, go ahead, the eagle, thinks he’s a chicken, he can’t fly. He took the eagle to the mountain, On two attempts he tried to fly, on two attempts he failed. The eagle just sailed to the ground, never flapping those beautiful majestic wings. Rev. Franklin, says the farmer says, I told you that eagle couldn’t fly, the eagle is conditioned and thinks it’s a chicken. The passer-by asked for one more chance at getting the eagle to fly. He then took the Eagle-to the top of the highest mountain. He told the eagle of her great history, of a royal family, of community unity, self-love. On that third attempt, he tossed the eagle into the air; the eagle begins to open its wings and soar. The eagle, finally realized, that she was a majestic bird of great capabilities and a great history.

Juneteenth is a day for the community to reflect on our individual and collective greatness. For me, Juneteenth is sacred. It’s a day to honor our ancestors, reflect on community love, family unity, self-love, and more love.

The paradox of education is precisely this — that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. James Baldwin

Soar Sisters, Soar Brothers, Power to the people.

Happy Juneteenth