Monthly Mission ★ Juneteenth 2020
The outrage, the exhaustion, the pain — channeled into action — is working.
Juneteenth. June 19th is representative of both progress in our fight for Black equity and the long road ahead. We have to keep up the fight. We have to sustain momentum.
If you are protesting, remember to protect yourself. We are still in the midst of a global pandemic that disproportionately affects Black people. Wear a mask and stay vigilant. Also remember to protect others. Blur any faces in photos you share. The DEA now has authority to use these photos to track and investigate.
Review the growing list of pending petitions against police brutality; sign and share. Help redistribute wealth and take action with #MyBlackReceipt. If you’re contacting your representatives directly, remember to write your own email, templated emails are being filtered out and ignored.
—
Changes in legal status have not secured freedom for Black people.
A brief timeline of the path to Juneteenth.
Apr 12, 1861 → Civil War begins
| 528 days
Sep 22, 1862 → Emancipation Proclamation is issued by Lincoln, changing the legal status of more than 3.5M people in Confederate states from enslaved to free*
| 101 days
Jan 1, 1863 → Emancipation Proclamation “goes into effect”
| 829 days
Apr 9, 1865 → Civil War ends
| 71 days
Jun 19, 1865 → Juneteenth. News makes it to Texas, one of the last Confederate strongholds, that all previously enslaved people in Texas are free**
| 170 days
Dec 6, 1865 → Constitutional Amendment 13 is ratified, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude — except as punishment for a crime***
| 56,443 days
Jun 19, 2020 → Today, we continue the fight for freedom
*It also allowed those previously enslaved to be enlisted in the Union Army, increasing the Union’s manpower. It did not outlaw slavery or free those in the Union states that still permitted it.
**Oppression has persisted through sharecropping, Jim Crow, redlining, and mass incarceration.
***It is legal to discriminate against convicted criminals in nearly all the ways in which it was once legal to discriminate against Black people. Learn more from Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”
—
“we gotta dance to keep from cryin/we gotta dance to keep from dyin” — Ntozake Shange
♪ Celebrate Black life with FNCTNworldwide on Juneteenth at 3PM ET. Sets by Jazzy Jeff, Just Blaze and Cory Townes.
