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I Fought for Civil Rights and All I Got Was Juneteenth (Part 1)
The Holiday that Doesn’t Give, it Takes
As a young man, I witnessed the Civil Rights Movement without a complete understanding of what I was seeing. There might have been brief coverage of civil rights protests in states far away. I was eight when Malcolm X was assassinated, and the coverage on the three television channels was minimal. The first mosque in Minnesota wouldn’t open for another 33 years. I don’t recall having seen a Black Muslim until I went to college. In my hometown of Minneapolis, there was no marching in the streets when Malcolm died.
I was eleven when riots erupted in North Minneapolis after the mistreatment of a Black woman by police during the Aquatennial Parade. I attended church every Sunday in North Minneapolis, but I lived in South Minneapolis. I might as well have been a hundred miles away. Minneapolis faced similar issues to those in the Southern United States—unequal treatment of African Americans in business, politics, education, and housing. There were no jobs for Black youth, but I was eleven, what did I know of unemployment? The riots lasted three days, and the governor called out the National Guard.
