Ashton Villa. By Jim Evans - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Juneteenth is perhaps the oldest holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States. In our recent time, many have begun to focus more deeply on the heritage and experience of Black people in the United States. A much needed shift, but for years, the Black community has been celebrating Juneteenth, remembering the jubilant day millions of oppressed people’s freedom was solidified, celebrating and acknowledging the dignity of our fellow men and women. 

Civil Rights have been a crucial part of American history, and maybe more appropriately, we should say Human Rights, as the two are inextricably intertwined. As architects and designers, the recognition of every human being’s intrinsic value and worth are categorically unavoidable to our duties as facilitators and builders of spatial human experiences. But, with all that aside, what does Juneteenth have to do with architecture? Really, it doesn’t have anything to do with it. But, the culminating event that established this historical day of celebration took place at a very important building, a building that now holds with it a legacy of reformation and a new beginning in America: the Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas.

The Confederate Brickmason

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

- Frederick Douglass

By 1870 James Moreau Brown, a prominent businessman and banker, was one of the wealthiest men in Texas. While he lived in New York City earlier in his life, Brown worked as an apprentice brickmason and plasterer and later developed skills as an architect. Eventually moving to Galveston, Texas in the 1840s, the young brickmason was influential in the construction of the first brick jail in the region. He rose in status in his new community and during the Civil War, devoted his service to the Confederacy, soon receiving the honorary title of colonel after helping recapture Galveston from Union Troops.

Reaching his late thirties, Brown had married and designed and built what has been considered one of the first brick homes in Texas: the Ashton Villa, a three-story Victorian Italianate style home. Constructed in 1859, the home served as a headquarters for the Confederate Army for the entire Civil War until the Union Army seized it in mid-1862 before it was re-captured by the Confederates soon after the Battle of Galveston (with the help of Brown).

The Villa Becomes a Vehicle of Defeat

"The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,
of things unknown, but longed for still,
and his tune is heard on the distant hill,
for the caged bird sings of freedom."

- Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

So, we have a brick symbol of oppressive power in the middle of a slave state. Moreover, Brown used slave labor to build his intricate high-rising residence that later became the HQ of rebellion against the Union Army. What happens next is truly a display of ironic karma. 

A few years after the start of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issues his Emancipation Proclamation, changing the legal status of millions of enslaved people in rebel Confederate states from enslaved to free. This was in January 1863. A day of progress, but only partially; the executive order applied only to enslaved people in the Southern Confederate states, and Texas, being one of the most remote slave states, hardly felt the effects of this new mandate made by Lincoln. According to historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., by 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas. That was two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

The once oppressive symbol of enslavement, in a moment, became the center stage that hosted the proclamation of the reversal of that enslavement

For the enslaved people in Texas, hope looked slim, but almost two months after Robert E. Lee’s surrender, on Sunday, June 18th, 2,000 Union troops led by General Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas, and in a display of total triumph over the Confederates, took possession of the Ashton Villa. The once oppressive symbol of enslavement, in a moment, became the center stage that hosted the proclamation of the reversal of that enslavement and has since come to symbolize the liberation of all enslaved people.

Complete Victory

"This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."

- Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Henry L. Pierce and others

The following day, on June 19th, General Granger climbed to the second story of the Ashton Villa, walked out to the balcony and boldly announced the total emancipation of all people held as slaves. In “General Order No. 3,” Granger read:

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

We remember the victory had over injustice and the continued strides we all must take to celebrate intrinsic human value, worth, and beauty, regardless of color.

Later that year, December 18th marked the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, officially abolishing slavery in all U.S. states. Today, when we look upon the Ashton Villa, a mere brick structure, built by enslaved people, we undoubtedly and appropriately remember the oppression it represented, but more powerfully, we remember the triumph it radiates. We remember the victory had over injustice and the continued strides we all must take to celebrate intrinsic human value, worth, and beauty, regardless of color.