Faith Works 6-19-2026
Jeff Gill
Stony the road they trod
___
June 19th has been marked on a national basis for five years now, but Juneteenth has been a significant occasion for the African American community since the first one in 1865.
It’s “Juneteenth” in part because the origins of the celebration come out of Texas, and people enslaved were freed from Galveston on the coast to the inner parts of agricultural Texas all through the latter part of the month, and on into July and even August by the time you get to El Paso. Black citizens of Texas have marked Juneteenth every year since, and as some migrated north, they brought the observance with them.
With the end of the Civil War in April of 1865, there was much concern about what to do for and with freed slaves in the former Confederacy. Lincoln set in motion before his death what had the original title “The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands,” which for obvious reasons became known simply as the Freedmen's Bureau.
It was governed out of the Department of War, with General Oliver Otis Howard the commissioner, and various generals given responsibility for states. Texas, the home of Juneteenth (also known as “Jubilee Day”), had less damage from the previous four years than many Southern states, so the work of what would be called Reconstruction was simpler on one level, but made more complex by the arrival of many people, formerly enslaved, who came to Texas precisely because opportunities to work were more available with less destruction holding recovery back.
Our local connection to all of this is that Perry County’s own Gen. Philip Sheridan was put in charge of the Texas Freedmen’s Bureau, and soon after his right-hand associate was Granville’s Gen. Charles Griffin. Sheridan and Griffin went to work with a will, feeding the hungry at first, building up schools and civic institutions to include African Americans, and leading the push to register them to vote, as well.
The later history of Reconstruction and the Freedmen’s Bureaus is complex and not always a happy story, but Sheridan and Griffin were clearly on the side of inclusion, desegregation, and justice for all; later Griffin was promoted to overall responsibilities as Sheridan moved on, but would soon die young, at the age of 41, from complications of yellow fever during an epidemic outbreak in Texas.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is often a part of Juneteenth commemorations. It looks back to the pain inflicted by slavery, “stony the road we trod” to get to the day of jubilee; it also looks ahead “Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last…” For many in the Black community, Juneteenth is the necessary prelude to the Fourth of July, in any year, but surely also in our semi-quincentennial anniversary of American independence.
Juneteenth is not a church occasion, but if you read historian Annette Gordon-Reed’s “On Juneteenth” you will catch a sense of how the observance has roots in the institutions which endured through and after slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement and into the present day. The symbolism of drinking red pop and eating red beans and other red foods, the songs and stories lifted high on June 19th, all are part of a story of redemption we need to hear and celebrate as a nation.
In our part of Ohio, we have Sheridan and Griffin’s example to connect us to those memories; in those early days after war’s end, it was ironically only the U.S. Army, and the Christian churches, who had the structure and stature to start the rebuilding process, from feeding the desperate, housing those new to Texas or without their former homes, and bringing the community together.
Juneteenth is our story, as a nation, and as people of faith who believe in redemption and transformation. May every voice be lifted in celebration!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he would argue the study of history requires a fair measure of faith. Tell him how you find your hope for the future at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
Jeff Gill
Stony the road they trod
___
June 19th has been marked on a national basis for five years now, but Juneteenth has been a significant occasion for the African American community since the first one in 1865.
It’s “Juneteenth” in part because the origins of the celebration come out of Texas, and people enslaved were freed from Galveston on the coast to the inner parts of agricultural Texas all through the latter part of the month, and on into July and even August by the time you get to El Paso. Black citizens of Texas have marked Juneteenth every year since, and as some migrated north, they brought the observance with them.
With the end of the Civil War in April of 1865, there was much concern about what to do for and with freed slaves in the former Confederacy. Lincoln set in motion before his death what had the original title “The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands,” which for obvious reasons became known simply as the Freedmen's Bureau.
It was governed out of the Department of War, with General Oliver Otis Howard the commissioner, and various generals given responsibility for states. Texas, the home of Juneteenth (also known as “Jubilee Day”), had less damage from the previous four years than many Southern states, so the work of what would be called Reconstruction was simpler on one level, but made more complex by the arrival of many people, formerly enslaved, who came to Texas precisely because opportunities to work were more available with less destruction holding recovery back.
Our local connection to all of this is that Perry County’s own Gen. Philip Sheridan was put in charge of the Texas Freedmen’s Bureau, and soon after his right-hand associate was Granville’s Gen. Charles Griffin. Sheridan and Griffin went to work with a will, feeding the hungry at first, building up schools and civic institutions to include African Americans, and leading the push to register them to vote, as well.
The later history of Reconstruction and the Freedmen’s Bureaus is complex and not always a happy story, but Sheridan and Griffin were clearly on the side of inclusion, desegregation, and justice for all; later Griffin was promoted to overall responsibilities as Sheridan moved on, but would soon die young, at the age of 41, from complications of yellow fever during an epidemic outbreak in Texas.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is often a part of Juneteenth commemorations. It looks back to the pain inflicted by slavery, “stony the road we trod” to get to the day of jubilee; it also looks ahead “Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last…” For many in the Black community, Juneteenth is the necessary prelude to the Fourth of July, in any year, but surely also in our semi-quincentennial anniversary of American independence.
Juneteenth is not a church occasion, but if you read historian Annette Gordon-Reed’s “On Juneteenth” you will catch a sense of how the observance has roots in the institutions which endured through and after slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement and into the present day. The symbolism of drinking red pop and eating red beans and other red foods, the songs and stories lifted high on June 19th, all are part of a story of redemption we need to hear and celebrate as a nation.
In our part of Ohio, we have Sheridan and Griffin’s example to connect us to those memories; in those early days after war’s end, it was ironically only the U.S. Army, and the Christian churches, who had the structure and stature to start the rebuilding process, from feeding the desperate, housing those new to Texas or without their former homes, and bringing the community together.
Juneteenth is our story, as a nation, and as people of faith who believe in redemption and transformation. May every voice be lifted in celebration!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he would argue the study of history requires a fair measure of faith. Tell him how you find your hope for the future at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
