✊🏾 Happy Juneteenth ✊🏾
Mom told us to get dressed because we were going to do our part and participate in a march to have Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day recognized federally in Arizona.
I remember being shocked and proud because:
I'd never seen so many Black people in one place. Arizona's Black population was less than 3% at that time.
We were all fighting for the same goal.
Arizona was the last state to recognize the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday in 1993, after two previous rejections.
It was a long struggle and a small victory.
Today, we recognize Juneteenth.
June 19, 1865, was the day that enslaved Americans in Texas were notified that they were free.
Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation 2 years earlier, in 1863, but news of the end of slavery had not reached Texas.
Slavery wasn’t actually abolished in the US until Congress passed the 13th Amendment on January 31, 1865.
The Jim Crow laws and the suppression of Civil Rights and other conditions that mirrored slavery prevailed and still do to this day.
Juneteenth became a Federal Holiday in 2021, and it's a day to remember the incredible struggle our people have endured against slavery and racism.
It's also a call to remember the progress that has been made and to continue the fight. There is work to be done.
Happy Juneteenth.
Be More You.
Shermain.
