by Harold McMillan

Happy Independence Day. Both of them.

How free, how independent, just how emancipated are you? For me, being a Texas Black man, I guess I -- and other Texas Black Folks -- are double-free, double-lucky. We got Juneteenth and the 4th of July.

It has just been in the last few years that the whole Juneteenth thing has made it into the mainstream. Who would have ever thought that state agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and others would be granting this day as an official holiday or providing the option for employees to take the day as a personal, paid day off from work. Originally the Juneteenth notion was just a Texas thing for Black folks. Now it's all over the place, Black Texans throughout the nation are throwing 'Teenth parties in all parts of the US. And for some reason, the State of Texas is embracing the practice and laying claim to starting a national cultural tradition. This whole thing is quite cool, if not ironic.

Now, I'm not really an old guy, but I remember when I was a kid growing up in Emory , Texas there was not wide-spread agreement on what to do with or about The 'Teenth. Just because you were part of a Black family, it didn't necessarily mean that you threw a big party every year at Juneteenth. And, especially so in the 1960s and '70s, white folks in Emory, Texas had no idea what Juneteenth was. The ones who did, for the most part I'd say, had absolutely no interest in coming out to Sand Flat (that's what my neighborhood was is called) to join in the celebration of African American Freedom. Some would, however, come out for the baseball game or to buy some of Uncle Boot's barbecue ("...You people sure can play some baseball. And, I swear, can't no colored man smoke pork like Boots. Damn, that boy can cook. I don't care what you people are celebrating, gotta have some of Boot's firemeat.")

Like I said, I'm not really an old guy, but the truth is, when I was a kid in Emory, Texas most of us didn't celebrate Juneteenth. We, the then recent recipients of the Voting Rights Acts, Civil Rights Acts, and various Kennedy/Johnson Era desegregation measures didn't need to celebrate The 'Teenth. My parents, relatives, and friends were citizens of the Great Society. And in the Great Society, even in backwoods Northeast Texas, "evolved Negroes" didn't need to go back to the Bad Old Days of Being Colored. We was newly Black Americans -- "Get them chitlins and headrags, and red soda water and moon pies, and Juneteenth baseball games away from us." We didn't any longer need a segregated emancipation party. Mr. Charlie was now gonna let us march in the 4th of July Parade. In backwoods Northeast Texas in the 60s and 70s, contemporary political correctness meant that many "smart" Black folks stopped celebrating Juneteenth.

The thing is, by and large, the poorest, country-est, Colored-est Negroes went right on with their Juneteenth barbecues and baseball games. The newly Black Negroes, however, pretty much stopped their parties, looked down their noses at 'Teenth celebrations, and told stories of how in grandpa and grandma's day -- the Bad Old Days of Being Colored-everybody had such a good time on Juneteenth because Colored folks were not really welcome at 4th of July Celebrations (or anywhere else in town). Segregation required that these independence day celebrations be looked at as "separate but equal." Unfortunately, the thing that the '60s version of New Negroes didn't see, didn't appreciate, was that they were really, often times, selling their Colored cousins short. They didn't get (and yes, I think my parents were among these) that, perhaps, the Juneteenth celebrations were also ways for Black folks to demonstrate that the promise of the Declaration of Independence , The Bill of Rights, and much of the Constitution really was not reaching African America. Perhaps they didn't spend enough time asking that question: Just How Free Are You?

So, for me, my early youth didn't include actual celebration of Juneteenth as much as it was a time for my elders to tell stories about how they used to celebrate the Teenth.

Just how free were we in Emory when I was a kid, in the 60s? Not very.

I am but a mere 40-something guy, but I have vivid memories of visiting my Aunt Dee in the kitchen of the Delux Cafe on the square in Emory. Since I was just a little guy, I thought it was cool to have the run of the kitchen with my favorite aunt. Dee was the kinda woman who ran the situations she was involved in. She was about as wide as she was tall, loved to cook and eat, and didn't take any shit from anyone. She was a great talker and story teller and gossip. Everyone just loved Dee. Some feared her. Make no mistake, to me, she owned that kitchen and the Delux. My six year old self felt honored and special to be allowed in the back door of the Delux to hang out and eat with Dee. I ate all and whatever I wanted. Paid no money. And got to just dump my leftovers in the slop bucket (which Uncle Fannon, Dee's husband, would retrieve each day and dispatch to his hog farm). Dump what I didn't want to eat, and ask Aunt Dee for my next course. Was that cool, or what?

See, I was my Aunt Dee's favorite nephew. She and Uncle Fannon lived next door to us. Dee was my dad's baby sister. Her youngest son Leslie, was my protector and best friend. So when ever Leslie and I got to go hang out in the back of the Delux, I always had a great time. And regardless of how it was in the rest of beautiful downtown Emory, in the back door of the Delux, me and Leslie were the kid-kings. No whiteboy better not come back there and try to throw his weight around. Aunt Dee would set'um straight and run them right out of there. So what if the table off of which we ate was two feet away from a huge, open container of slop for Uncle Fannon's hogs.

Did it smell?

Oh yes.

Did the waitresses (and owners) come through an make jokes about Dee's "little pic-a-ninny ?"

Oh yes.

Did all of the other Black folks who ate at the Delux have to come through the back door and eat at that table next to that stinkin slop can?

Yes. And they paid the same price as the white folks sitting out front with table service. We ate better than they did, though. And you can bet the owner didn't dare cross Dee about it. They knew better.

Dee would walk in a minute if she was abused, more than the inherent abuse that came with her jobs. She was legend as a cook. Dee was not a chef, she was a cook. Everybody she worked for, and there were tens of cafe kitchens and white folks' houses where she worked, knew not to push her too far. She had this countrified colored dignity that was unshakable. She'd work in your kitchen, take care of your kids, clean your house, and give advice on how to handle a sapsucker of a husband. She was fair and respectful, if respect was earned. One of her sayings was " you don't shit where you eat." She lived by that. But, she didn't take no shit -- especially from white folks.

As I got older, I finally began to understand what was going on. It was not an honor to eat in the back of the Delux with Dee. Not the DeLux, or City Cafe, or Bell's Cafe. Dee and Fannon had a family to support. Kids to send to college. Hogs to slaughter for cash. Trash to dump, metal to scavenge through for resale. Houses to clean for a living. Yards to mow so the kids could help make the bills. This was not fun and games for anyone. This was life in America in my lifetime. Your lifetime.

Dee was a pistol to deal with. A big fat lovable woman who would gossip about you, but feed you when you were hungry, without fail, no matter who your daddy was, no matter what color your hair was. Dee would tell you squarely to go right directly to hell, and then send her boys over to help when there was a crisis at home. No matter who your daddy was. And, funny thing, many of the white kids that Dee took care of, had more respect for her than they did for their parents. Dee was the quintessential strong, no nonsense mother figure. Fannon, for some folks, was a Tom. He picked up white folks trash. He smiled all the time and always said yes ma'am and no ma'am to white girls half his age. But he owned land, and took care of his family. They were never hungry. Dee and Fannon did what they had to do to make a living in Emory, Texas.

I finally understood why Mr. Nix always got upset when we went to the soda fountain and I sat down at the same tables that white folks sat at. I don't think he ever actually asked me, being the cute little pic-a-ninny I must have been, to get up. But I remember him talking to my sister about it. Asking, didn't they teach me better than that?

"He's a cute little darkie, but ya'll need to teach him better. We can't have him sitting at the table while he drinks his malt. Ya'll, you know better, have to stand up or take your drinks to go."

The thing is, at that point, even as a cute little pica-ninny, I did get it. From that time on, every time I went into the drug store with my brothers or sister, I sat down at the "for whites only tables." Yeah, I could read the sign. But I dared Booker Nix to ask me to get up. Yeah, I continued to have to go in the back door of the Delux (or whatever place it was that Aunt Dee was working). But I understood why Dee stuffed me with more food than I could possibly eat and made sure I always took some home. And I understood why my folks would not go or allow us to go into the back door of any cafe in Emory unless we knew the folks who were in the kitchen cooking the food. You support family and friends. But you do so, eyes wide open.

I chose to talk about Dee and Fannon here because their eyes were indeed wide open. Many of the folks they worked for had no idea how subversive they were in their menial jobs. Many of the folks in the community had no idea just how significantly they were "getting over," given the cards they were dealt. Like Dee always said, "You don't shit where you eat. But you sure as hell-as long as you're Black -- take no shit from nobody. I don't care who their daddy is."

Oh yeah. Dee and Fannon were among those who did celebrate Juneteenth, even after they stopped being Colored.