The Righteous Caucasians of Juneteenth

The Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust.  That phrase loomed large in the narrative of my younger days.  Despite the thrashing Christians got for their complicity in the Holocaust, there was always an attempt to single out those non-Jews - Christian or not - who risked, and even lost, their lives to help save Jews from Nazi clutches.  

In Jewish circles, a place of honor was held for those RGs, and in more than one place you can find a memorial honoring their courage and love and sacrifice.  I might say that in Jewish circles they were given more praise and thanksgiving than in society at large.  

I say that because it was mentioned recently that you don't see that today among BLM and other modern Black activists.  In fact, if you mention the role White Americans played in helping Blacks, you can get smacked down.  Either you're accused of somehow trying to deny racism or downplay Jim Crow or your belittling lynchings, or you're reminded that even if Whites did do something for Blacks, they were still racists who probably didn't really care about the Blacks in question. 

In our neck of the woods, our city council just passed a resolution recognizing Juneteenth.  I listened on FB to the reading of the resolution.  Apparently it's about slaves getting their freedom.  Nothing else. No thanks to the Union Army, the Government, or anyone in particular.  Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation were mentioned, but only to point out that they failed to end slavery, the practice ending on Juneteenth when the last slaves in America acquired their freedom. 

I noticed the verbiage used - when slaves acquired their freedom.  As if they got it, you know. somehow reached out and did it, obtained it, grabbed it, Black power and all.  No, it was given them. By an all white government that sent the Union Army led by a white general down to free the slaves in Texas.  

Now slavery in general, and the African Slave trade in particular, would continue on for many generations in other parts of the world (there actually were a couple technical holdouts here).  It wouldn't be until 1980, the year John Lennon was assassinated, Ronald Reagan elected president, and Disco died, that the last country trafficking in African slaves finally outlawed the practice.  On the whole, America was part of that radical movement saying all slavery was bad and had to go, joining a growing number of European nations - Western, Christian, Enlightenment based - who were abolishing the practice altogether. 

But again, that's not how I'm hearing this presented.  I hear little among modern Civil Rights, BLM or other Black activists giving much of a shout-out to those righteous Caucasians.  I wonder why that is.  Why is it if you bring up the sacrifice White Americans made in ending slavery and helping Civil Rights, at best you're corrected, at worst you're accused of racism?  Those who did the fighting and dying are said to have still been racists, or not concerned with Black rights, or somehow deficiently antiracist, or holding racist views.  

I don't know.  It's been years since I paid attention to things like Holocaust remembrance and Righteous Gentiles. After all, most Millennials can barely describe the events meant to be remembered.  Perhaps Jews no longer make a big deal about the RGs.   But if they do, I wonder why the same attention is not given  among BLM, Civil Rights, and other Black activists and their supporters today.  In fact, why is it when you try to point out the contributions of Caucasian Americans in ending slavery, Jim Crow and passing Civil Rights, you can be met with almost hostile rebuttals.  Or am I just missing something.