I’m finding it hard to write about Juneteenth. Oh, I start off briskly enough with a few googled facts and dates and some wanderings about the real reasons it took so long for the emancipation of Texas slaves to take effect.

What happens is I then slip into some experience of the world then, blindness, fear of loss and punishment, the confusing and frightening joy of freedom. And my mind goes into roundabout. It’s a scary piece of history to visit—and if you’re from the south as I am, it’s imbedded in your genes one way or another.

Imagine—to see your house servants and field hands no longer as owned appendages to your life, but as men and women. No longer under your command. Imagine, to see your ‘owners’ as powerless to stop you from taking one step, then another away from them, off their land into your own risky rich unboundaried journey.