Understanding the historical context behind racial reckoning

By delving into some of the context behind historical events surrounding race in different regions around the world, we can acknowledge struggle and progress, while deepening our knowledge. Through this exploration of Australia’s National Reconciliation Week, Juneteenth in the United States and the U.K’s Windrush Day, we hope to share some insights, dispel misconceptions, and reinforce the fact that some seemingly disparate experiences are actually more closely aligned than we think. 

Reconciliation Myth: ‘At the time of colonization, Australia was ‘terra nullius,’ which translates into land belonging to no one.’

While it wasn’t until May 27, 1967 that Australians voted to remove clauses in the Australian Constitution that discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and count them in the census, a form of redemption came a bit later in 1992. The High Court recognized that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ continuing connection and rights to land prior to European colonization.

Truth is: The implementation of initiatives to help elevate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories, as well as festivities to celebrate their rich cultures, are both steps toward closing the health, wealth, and representation gap. However, these efforts can’t undo the centuries of trauma or inability to practice their cultures. From languages and art to dances and songs – when their land was stolen, a piece of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was also denied.

There’s still more work to do to ensure equitable treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The road to reconciliation is a long one, but its end will hopefully enable generations of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to live equally, alongside one another.

Much like National Reconciliation Week, Juneteenth has only recently been broadly recognized, as it was first signed into law as a federal holiday in the U.S. in 2021. It is also a day that acknowledges several hundred years of inequities and unjust treatment. Thousands of miles across the pond from Australia, Black people in America also lost cultural practices and huge parts of their identities. They were stolen from their lands and then sold into slavery.

Juneteenth Myth: All slaves were freed on June 19, 1865.

June 19, 1865, is known as the day that marked the end of slavery in the United States. While that was the day on which all slaves were freed, in reality, they all were actually not. 

Truth is: Though President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 – establishing that ‘all enslaved people, in Confederate states shall be free,’ those enslaved in Galveston, Texas did not learn of their freedom until two years later on June 19, 1865. Slave owners were responsible for telling the enslaved that they were free, and many neglected to inform their slaves of this fact. Union Major General Gordon Granger informed the community of Galveston of Lincoln’s proclamation in 1865 and demanded slave-owners comply.

Lincoln’s Proclamation also only applied to those who were enslaved in the 11 rebellious states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. It wasn’t until the end of the Civil War, on December 6, 1865, that slavery was abolished for all enslaved in the North and South – six months after Juneteenth was initially celebrated.

Over the years, there has been much debate among Black people about how to commemorate this troubled and unfortunate past. But, choosing not to remember likens it to the hundreds of years in which Black people were not considered equal, even though their work and contributions helped build the America we know today.

Windrush Myth: Reports ranging in the number (from hundreds to over a thousand) of Caribbean people who arrived in the UK on the Empire Windrush ship on June 22, 1948.

There is no accurate number of passengers who were on board the ship, but many of them entered the UK as recruits to work in the steel, coal, iron, food, and public transport industries, and for the National Health Services (NHS). The UK, which suffered significant losses following World War II, had invited Afro-Caribbean migrants to relocate there to help fill its labor shortage.

Over the next several decades, the Windrush generation was subjected to extreme racism. They experienced the colour bar, a policy that prevented Black people from entering pubs, bars, restaurants, and under which landlords were allowed to refuse to rent to immigrants. It wasn’t until 1966 that it was deemed unlawful to display signs such as “Job Vacancies: No Blacks, No Coloureds, No Irish need apply” or “Rooms to let, No Blacks, No Coloureds, No Irish, No dogs”! 

In 2018, it was revealed that at least 83 members of the Windrush generation were wrongly deported, and many more were denied state assistance (fewer than five of those cases have been resolved to date). This series of events led to the establishment of Windrush Day to bring attention to the Windrush generation’s contributions to British life.

Journeying through three parts of the world and reflecting on troubling pasts that impacted three separate populations of people reinforces that, at some point, many of our experiences align. We are all impacted by journeys that started long before us. These journeys make us who we are today. And that is why it is our responsibility to understand the past and cultivate inclusive roads for our future.