Juneteenth

Juneteenth Summary | Chapters 1, 2 and 3 Summary

Juneteenth is Ralph Ellison's novel about civil rights and racism issues in the early to mid-twentieth century. The book's title stems from the June 19, 1865, notification to slaves in Texas concerning the emancipation of slaves. In actuality, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was issued in January of 1863, two and a half years prior to this notification. "Juneteenth" is the slang term assigned by the Negro people of that time to mark the inaccuracy and injustice of the delayed information.

As the novel begins, a group of elderly, southern Negroes arrives in Washington, D.C. on a mission to see Senator Adam Sunraider. The group led my Reverend A.Z. Hickman waits patiently in the Senator's office, while the secretary explains that the Senator is not available and cannot be seen without an appointment. Reverend Hickman tries to impress upon the young woman that the Senator would be glad to know of the arrival of the group, and that any interruption would not be unwelcome.

The group is turned away. Then, they are searched by security guards on their way out to their next destinations of a private hotel suite maintained by the Senator and the editorial department of a newspaper. The Senator is not in town, and the newspaper has no interest in what the elderly Negroes have to say. Reverend Hickman is patient, although he tells the newspaper that soon they will wish they had listened to the group's message.

The next day, the group attends a Senate session to watch Senator Sunraider deliver a speech on racial issues in America. During the speech, the Senator begins to have hallucinations about the eagle from the Great Seal in the Senate swooping down, causing the Senator to almost duck to avoid its talons. The Senator closes his eyes to avoid the visions. However, they do not lessen, but rather intensify with images of the eagle swooping relentlessly with an olive branch in its beak.

The Senator is buoyed by the visions and delivers his speech with rhetoric that is met with whoops, clapping and the Rebel yell. It is this reception that makes the Senator look over the gallery. He sees a lone man standing in the upper level Visitor's Gallery and pointing his arm straight out at the podium. The Senator's impatience with the man's rudeness soon turns to shock, as the man aims and shoots at the Senator on the stage.

The Senator hears the noise of the shot and sees the chandelier crashing. At first, he thinks that his high drama performance has shattered the crystal light fixture. It takes several minutes for the slow-motion events to register with the Senator that he has been shot, and that the man up above continues to empty his gun at the stage.

The Senator has brief glimpses of his past, as he tries to maintain consciousness and ultimately falls to the stage mortally wounded. Reverend Hickman watches in shock as the Senator, his adopted white son, collapses. The young man who has shot the Senator rushes to the edge of the gallery, and Hickman calls him by name, "Severen." He tells him to wait, but the young man lunges head first over the railing to his death.

Hickman is distraught that the Senator has been shot, declaring him as the last hope. Hickman's group is ushered to the Justice Department for questioning, but word reaches the officials that the Senator is calling out for Reverend Hickman. The Reverend rushes to the hospital to be at the Senator's bedside.