Juneteenth Reflections

June 19th was Impactful in Many Ways

Photo Source: CNN.com

Another Juneteenth has gone, and I wanted to share my thoughts about the day. Many celebrations were had in the days leading up to June 19th, the day the country celebrates Juneteenth in honor of when enslaved people were freed in Galveston, Texas, in 1865. It is a time for celebration and for honoring those who endured bondage for far too long.

Since 1865, Black people, my people, have suffered bias, discrimination, and racism in a country that depended on our ancestors to create. Black hands built the White House. Black hands tilled fields. Black hands cleaned homes and cared for children, not their own. Black bodies were attacked, beaten, chained, and whipped. Black bodies bore the scars of their enslavement. Those memories were passed down from generation to generation.

While our ancestors and many of our early descendants have left us, many Black academics and historians study the history of our people in America. We weren’t just slaves. We were freedom fighters, inventors, and protesters. Nat Turner led a slave rebellion. Harriet Tubman helped many Black people achieve freedom. George Washington Carver created hundreds of uses for the peanut. Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist, scholar, and statesman. Our ancestors lived through hundreds of years of forced…