today marks the second anniversary since President Joe Biden named Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021… as more Americans celebrate Juneteenth with family and community, it is vital to share the important historical legacy behind Juneteenth and recognize the long struggle to make it an officially recognized holiday… it is an opportunity to honor our country’s second Independence Day and reflect on our shared history and future… the origins of Juneteenth date to June 1865; even though the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and the Confederate army surrendered to the Union army in April 1865, enslaved people in Texas—the westernmost Confederate state—could not exercise their freedom until June 19, 1865 when Union General Gordon Granger led some 2,000 Union troops, many of whom were Black, into Galveston Bay, where they announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free by executive decree... decades of collective action would follow as equality and justice for African-Americans advanced slowly, frustratingly, gradually, on our nation’s journey toward a more perfect union. on this Juneteenth, we re-member that struggle as we reflect on how far we’ve come as a country and how far we still have to go… the slaves of Galveston knew their freedom was only a first step, just as the bloodied foot soldiers who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge 100 years later knew they had to keep marching and demanding…
formerly enslaved people immediately sought to reunify families, establish schools, run for political office, and even sue slaveholders for compensation… despite more than 200 years of enslavement, they demonstrated extraordinary courage and resilience as they transformed both their lives and their country… celebrated in family and church-centered gatherings, over time the holiday evolved to include annual pilgrimages to Galveston Bay by formerly enslaved individuals and their families…
over the decades, many advocated the establishment of Juneteenth as a national holiday… the Grandmother of Juneteenth, Opal Lee, was a driving force in this movement – in 2016, at the age of 89, she began a walk from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to bring awareness to this important cause… trekking two and a half miles each morning and afternoon, a representation of the two and a half years Black Texans remained enslaved after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lee soon had countless others who joined Lee on her march… the 1,400-mile walk concluded with a press conference that put Juneteenth on the nation’s radar…
this day stands as a testament to and celebration of the unyielding spirit of a people; it is a day for introspection, a platform for education, and a tribute to the monumental contributions of African Americans to the history of this nation… Juneteenth is a poignant reminder that oppressive systems can still be upheld, even after they’re formally dismantled… slavery ended on paper years before it ended in practice — and even then, anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and structural racism simply took on new forms, further entrenching themselves within our culture and systems…
Juneteenth is a time to recommit ourselves to the work that remains undone… we re-member that even in the darkest hours, there is cause to hope for tomorrow’s light… today, no matter our race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, we recommit ourselves to working to free modern-day slaves around the world and to honoring in our own time the efforts of those who wage liberation so diligently to steer our country truer to our highest ideals…
here we stand in this moment as we witness and participate in the rising tide demanding that America be the land of the free, demanding that justice for all be the law of the land, demanding that we start funding life re-membering we belong to each other rather than living under the delusion that we are separate leading to funding death and destruction and domination…
i woke up this morning with this old spiritual singing me… “woke up this morning with my mind on freedom”… may we all wake up with our mind on freedom for all, speaking truth to power and raising hell until we walk the talk of life, liberty and justice for all relatives…
