The host of an upcoming TBN special says Juneteenth is a holiday “as American as apple pie and Chevrolet” and is filled with biblical themes that Christians of all races should celebrate. TBN will air Juneteenth: Conversations of History and Healing on Monday, June 17, at 8 p.m. Eastern. The show will follow host Rick Rigsby as he travels the United States, uncovering stories of redemption, justice, and healing and examining the church’s role in them.
Celebrated each June 19, Juneteenth is a new national holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. and has been celebrated within certain segments of the black community since the late 1800s. It became an official holiday in Texas in 1979. The holiday was born June 19, 1865, when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that all enslaved people—250,000 or so in the state—were free. Their arrival came some two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
“This is not a black holiday, it’s an American holiday,” Rigsby told Crosswalk Headlines. “And what I really want people to know is that history is beautiful at times, it’s ugly, it’s even, and it’s uneven. … It is a series of threads that make up a tapestry. This is an American holiday worthy of being celebrated. Why? Because the Lord is being glorified. Because wrongs are being discussed and addressed. And that’s a good thing.”
The TBN special, Rigsby said, is filled with stories of hope and healing. The award-winning journalist traveled to Crownsville, Md., where he attended a memorial service for 500-plus black patients who went unaccounted for at a segregated mental hospital in the 1900s.
The memorial service included prayer, healing, and the coming together of people of all races.
“The likeliest answer is these 500 were live medical experiments,” he said. “… Just because something doesn’t appear on our number one podcast, just because something doesn’t appear in the opening segment of the Nightly News with Lester Holt doesn’t mean that it is not occurring.
“There are vestiges and venues of healing and reconciliation going on all throughout America,” he said.
Too often, he said, Americans “don’t like to have hard conversations.” Rigsby envisions a return to an era when Americans could engage in difficult conversations with civility and respect, such as when he was a child growing up in California in the 1960s.
“On my block, there was tremendous diversity,” Rigsby said. “We had Hispanic, Filipino, white, and black. We had age disparities. We had women, men. And they would, for some reason, come to my parent’s house. And they would argue all through the night, but I noticed something interesting: At the end of the evening, they got up, shook hands, hugged each other, and looked forward to the next debate. That’s what’s missing.”
Juneteenth is filled with biblical themes, he said.
“Imagine you’re living in the 1800s and you have no voice, you have no rights, your feelings don’t really matter. Every minute of every hour of every day is in servitude. You’re mocked, you’re denigrated, you’re exploited, you’re beaten, you’re broken. But you keep your head up, you persevere, and you pray. You have the nerve to believe that God can redeem,” he said. “And one summer, a couple of thousand folks — two years after the emancipation and in the unlikeliest of places, Galveston, Texas — march into your city saying, ‘You are free.’
“‘Thank you, Lord, we have been free — let us worship and celebrate.’ I can’t help but think about the children of Israel. I can’t help but think about the Pauline letters: You are no longer a slave to your body.”
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Lakshmiprasad S
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
