Juneteenth is not a celebration of the moment this country decided slavery was immoral. It is a celebration of when the people who were caged by slavery found out that they were free. The gap between something legally being true and the experience of something being true is vast. Freedom as a lived experience is powerful and intrinsic to the human experience.
We call to mind the historical significance of the true meaning of Juneteenth this year while we observe the echoes of history at play in cities across the nation. This month, we are witness to violent intrusions into our freedoms by the federal government—and simultaneously, attempts to gaslight us about what we are witnessing with our own eyes.
The patterns repeat and our endurance maintains. We celebrate how far we have come from that fateful day in Galveston, Texas in 1865 when the truth was revealed. And we hold in mind that our work towards consistency in truths and lived experience must never cease.