This Monday is Juneteenth, which you probably (finally) know because it’s (finally) a national holiday. Obviously I’m going to write about it so I can reiterate what it is and why you should be appalled by our history. But I made it a bit difficult on myself.

Way back in 2020, in response to the brutal police response to the George Floyd protests and the disheartening response by the government and the American public, I decided my column would celebrate Black History Month until something happened to at least try to address the systemic problems it highlighted. Not the bravest, most impactful or most meaningful protest, but I used the platform available to me.

That Black History Month went on for three months. It ended not because anything happened, but because society showed us that it was only going to double down on the deep, entrenched racism that killed Floyd and so many others before him and since.

But I digress. Those 12 weeks meant I went through 60 of my favorite songs by Black artists and a dozen column topics spotlighting Black people’s contributions to music. That’s a lot! Don’t get me wrong, I certainly have more than 60 songs I like by Black musicians, but I’m nowhere near creative enough to keep coming up with topics.

So, rather than try, here are five pretty much random songs by Black artists I like, along with the story of what Juneteenth commemorates.

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Janelle Monaé — “Yoga”

Way back when I was in school, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I learned that slavery ended on Jan. 1, 1863.

Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that changed the status of every slave in the United States to free. With one stroke of a pen, millions of people, an estimated 12 percent of everyone in the country, were freed. It also, conveniently, let Black people join the Union Army, which was needed on account of the Civil War, but by all accounts, Black Americans had very good reasons to want to join the fight.

That’s that then, right? Oh, if it was that easy.

BB King — “The Thrill is Gone”

I did mention the Civil War was happening.

As you might imagine, the Confederacy wasn’t especially keen to honor an executive order by the President of the country they had broken off from and were actively fighting. Especially since, despite what their fetishists tell you to this day, they were fighting pretty much exclusively to preserve slavery as an institution.

To digress for a second, how did this not cause a lot of reflection among the rank-and-file Confederate soldiers? Slaves were extremely expensive. Not everyone had slaves. That means there were countless men willing to literally die in order for rich people to own other people that happened to have a different amount of melanin. That’s insane. Can you imagine if people were willing to lay down their lives to protect some rich jerk today?

So, yeah, slavery still wasn’t over.

Mac Dre — “Thizzelle Dance”

The Civil War, of course, eventually ended. Like everyone fighting to deny basic humanity to a large group of people, the Confederacy lost. They rejoined the Union and, in doing so, the Emancipation Proclamation applied to them and the slaves were freed.

“But wait,” you’re almost definitely saying to yourself because you know American history. “The Civil War ended when Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865. Why is Juneteenth celebrated on June 19?”

It’s because of Texas. Well, because of several Southern states, but especially because of Texas.

Even though they lost, and even though they surrendered, not everyone actually freed their slaves. The last place to do so was Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. The first celebration of Juneteenth, called Jubilee Day at the time, was on June 19, 1866. It is not a new holiday.

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram — “Another Life Goes By”

You may have noticed that, despite me mentioning what Juneteenth commemorates and when it was first celebrated, there are still two more entries to this column. That’s never a good sign.

That wasn’t actually the end of slavery in the United States. The slaves were freed, but slavery as a concept was still on the books as a legal doctrine. Executive orders and court rulings are fine but, as the recent loss of Roe v. Wade illustrated, it’s no excuse for changing the actual law.

On Dec. 18, 1865, the 13th amendment was ratified, declaring that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” And that was that.

But wait! Technically, the real end of slavery was the Padrone Act of 1874. Despite the 13th amendment, Italian children were regularly bought and sold, and the Padrone Act was the first ban on what we would today call human trafficking, which is of course a form of slavery. You see, because race isn’t an innate thing but a social construct with no basis in science or reality, back then Italians weren’t considered white.

Billy Preston — “Will It Go Round In Circles”

I see that look. That suspicious, questioning look. You’re wondering why there’s one more entry in this column if I just told you about the law that banned the last remnant of slavery.

Well, you see, technically slavery isn’t currently banned.

In the last entry I included a “…” in the middle of the 13th amendment, signifying that something was removed. The full text is, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Emphasis mine.

If you’re convicted of a crime, any crime, you no longer fall under the 13th amendment’s protections. You can be in slavery or involuntary servitude. And that absolutely happens.

According to the ACLU, nearly 800,000 Americans are incarcerated workers. They make, on average, $0.13 to $0.52 per hour, have no workplace protections, and are often punished if they don’t work. Despite this, they produce $11 billion in goods and services per year. For example, the Clintons had mostly Black prison laborers at the governor’s mansion in Arkansas before he became President, according to Hillary, to keep costs down.

Like so many things, the situation didn’t change, just the terminology.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.