The dates are not hard to come by: January 2, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. June 19, 1865, declaration of the end of slavery. January 31, 1865, the 13th. Amendment, the abolition of slavery.
Dates are not history. History is the event that took place with such significance that transcends a particular moment in time. An event that will allow itself to become increasingly meaningful in the passage of time. In the passage of time, relevant information may come to light, but what is much more relevant is the sense of Truth that continues to grow.
With the struggle for freedom, some glimmers of this truth:
Freedom is an integral part of what it means to be a person. Freedom is not something that is bestowed by someone superior to someone inferior. Freedom is not something I have to earn, I was born with it. Freedom is not granted as an act of love or charity. It belongs to the person, no one grants what is already mine.
The fact that freedom is in the very nature of our being is recognized by the lives of the many who refused and refuse to be passive victims of structures of slavery. The courage manifested over centuries is beyond measure. Simply put, it meant resistance to the dominant culture’s government, religious beliefs, and practices. The truth held by a dominant culture is never the whole truth.
We must accept the sinful truth of the past. Only acceptance of what has been makes way for what can be.
Freedom is a sacred reality that is bigger than any particular human occurrence. The freedom that today animates life will always be a seedling stretching itself towards something bigger. The human race will not know freedom until all are free.
Today, the human race continues to struggle against slavery. Women, men, and children live under the bondage of poverty, structural injustice, belief systems that demand that the few have rights, and the rest have nothing, a sociopolitical system that worships upon the altar of economics, and an entrenched insistence in prejudice of all types.
… What are we to do?
Be grateful for what our ancestors longed and dreamed of, and today we enjoy. And with that same gratitude continue to build. This will be a holy edifice, otherwise known as the Reign of God.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, I rise. Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise, I rise, I rise. M.A.
Father Francisco Gómez, S. T.