Juneteenth: When will we be free?

Department

Leadership, Management & Business

Journal

Women's Media Center

Volume

June 18

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2020

Abstract

Juneteenth honors the date of June 19, 1865, when enslaved people in Texas were finally told that they were free, or at least no longer property of whites, due to the Emancipation Proclamation President Lincoln had signed in 1863. What did freedom mean? Lincoln himself said that his actions were not to free the slaves, but to save the union. Then as now, black lives did not fully matter. Where will our country be on Juneteenth 2021 — over 150 years after the official end of slavery in the United States and over 400 years after African people were brought to these shores as slaves to build a country in which systemic racism has continued to mutate to prevent African descendants from being equal participants?

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