Juneteenth, of course, is the day that word of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation reached the depths of Texas and marks the day when freedom was finally brought to all American slaves. Ralph Ellison, an African-American author of the outstanding and renowned Invisible Man, spent forty years compiling notes for this book. Eventually, death overtook him before a final version could be reached. Nonetheless, scholar John F. Callahan compiled this edition a few years after Ellison’s death to provide to the reading public. While this book understandably lacks some finishing polish, it delivers an insightful, intriguing, and moving account of the legacy of American slavery and racism.
The book starts with a U.S. Senator Bliss delivering a speech on the floor of Congress that seems to portray racist stereotypes. A black pastor named Rev. A.Z. Hickman sits in the audience when, to everyone’s surprise, a gunman enters the floor and shoots Sen. Bliss. Bliss is then delivered to a hospital room. For then-unknown reasons, Hickman joins him in his room. The rest of the book is filled with intrigue-filled memories of their life together that explain how they arrived at this point.
Hickman, a bachelor, raised Bliss, an orphan, to be a white pastoral representative of the black race who understood its nuances and represented its heart (as portrayed through the Christian religion, at least). However, that direction obviously became corrupted at some point, and understanding why and how becomes the central, unfolding dilemma of this book. Intrigue and contradictions are the main literary devices used to propel the reader forward through a confusing yet fascinating narrative.
Within that framework, each chapter is a reminiscence on some aspect of Bliss’s life and can function as an independent piece in and of itself. (In fact, some pieces were independently published.) These chapters can take a while to get into and understand, but their larger meanings always come through by the end. Ellison shines through as a great communicator of complex themes. The book as a whole, while unpacking America’s “original sin,” meanders through many aspects of American life. Its lack of focus and polish, due to Ellison’s death, is perhaps the only shortcoming in this edited version.
Literary scholars and scholars of African-American literature will of course love this book. Posthumously published works (like Blaise Pascal’s Pensees or Franz Kafka’s The Castle) as their own genre present a common set of interpretative challenges. Such is certainly present here. As edited, I’m not sure this book will ever receive the popular reception that it would have in finished form. Nonetheless, for its use of persistent intrigue and its insight into social problems, this book deserves to be studied for generations.
Juneteenth
By Ralph Ellison
Edited by John F. Callahan
Copyright (c) 1999
Vintage International
ISBN13 9780593314616
Page Count: 371
Genre: Fiction, African-American
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