In Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, Gen. Gordon Granger brought freedom from abstraction into reality for enslaved Africans in the District of Texas, as was already the case elsewhere in the country. His General Order No. 3 announced that, in compliance with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, all slaves in rebellious Texas were henceforth and forever free. The date would become etched in the collective memory of Black America as Juneteenth, a day of jubilation that outshone even the Fourth of July, a testament to the enduring power of freedom.
In an era where the very foundations of American democracy are under strain, the observance of Juneteenth offers a potent lens through which to examine our country’s ongoing struggle for racial justice and true equality. It is a mirror held up to the nation, reflecting both the progress made and the progress yet to be made.
Juneteenth is a stark reminder that freedom and equality have never come easily or swiftly to Black Americans. Even the Emancipation Proclamation, with its noble rhetoric, did not instantly abolish slavery. It took the bloody triumph of the Union, followed by the slow arrival of federal troops in recalcitrant Texas, to make emancipation a reality. This lag exposes the enduring gap between America’s lofty ideals and the lived experience of its Black citizens, a chasm that persists to this day.
Fast forward to our present moment. The struggles that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement — the systemic racism ingrained in this nation’s justice system, the wealth gap rooted in generations of disenfranchisement, the representation that remains tokenistic in many halls of power — are the remnants of the unfinished work that began on Juneteenth. They underscore that freedom, like emancipation before it, is not a singular event but an ongoing quest, a marathon rather than a sprint. The baton passed down through generations, each one called upon to run their leg of the race.