June 2020 AGWA Policy Newsletter Essay

Change can come quickly, surprisingly. Today, I have a long story about sudden change.

I grew up in a small town in a rural landscape in eastern Texas in the USA, a child of settlers who came there from at least seven or eight generations past, back to when the state was a province of Mexico. The great social division for all those years in Texas was racial, especially between whites and blacks. Slavery had the rule of law until June 19th, 1865, near the end of a bloody civil war. On that date, a Union ship landed on an island and major port in Texas called Galveston. I had family members living in Galveston then as the conquering soldiers told the crowds around the ship, white and black, that the war was over and that the slaves had been freed, their bondage ended.

Since that day, June 19th (always called “Juneteenth” in our local version of English) has been a major but very regional holiday to celebrate emancipation in Texas, especially in the part of the state where I grew up. 

But the legacy of the chains of slavery were hard to break. Only in 1965 — one hundred years after slavery ended in Texas — did blacks across the U.S. South fully gain the right to vote. That was just three years before I was born. And as a young boy, a judge ended the last racial segregation in my home town, so that whites and blacks went to the same schools. My family always acknowledged Juneteenth. Still, barriers existed. Progress has been unjustly slow.

The past few months in the USA since the death of George Floyd have been dramatic and moving. George Floyd was born near Galveston, near my home town, but he died far from there, in a cruel and unjust way. The call for justice with his death was strong and sudden and widespread. I have always lived with disappointment and grief over these injustices, as I am white, the descendant of slaveowners. The great change in my life came from having a black son, a son for whom I have developed the fear common to many black parents about their sons from unchecked and violent authority.

So with grief and hope I have watched the uprisings over the past weeks — not just in the US, but in many countries. Justice is slow, but I believe she is coming to many people. And she may be coming quickly now. Hope can be a fearful thing, but I have more hope now.

Last week was a strange mingling of local and global, signs of the rapidity of change. A colleague in the UK asked if we could reschedule a meeting because of Juneteenth — a national holiday nowhere, least of all the UK. “We should honor this day,” she wrote, not knowing anything about my family’s connection to the day. History is long, but culture can change directions quickly, often surprisingly. When you have waited a long time for change, for justice, that change feels sweet. When the door you have pushing against begins to move, even a little.

Two days before, I had been listening to a government minister talking about climate change, water, ecosystems, and development. He asked simply, “How can we do better? What more can we be doing?” I felt a little breathless at the simplicity of his questions. Grateful to hear what I have long waited for someone at his level to ask.

There is a lot more we can be doing. The wind feels fresh, more open. There is a lot more that can be done, but changes may be closer than we think. And the door may be moving.

John Matthews
Corvallis, Oregon, USA