What I’ll Be Freeing Myself From This Juneteenth
Learning to celebrate freedom as a Black woman in America
I’m new to celebrating Juneteenth. Like a lot of people, I didn’t grow up with it marked on the calendar the way the 4th of July has always been. My family never mentioned it, and I didn’t learn about it in school. But I suppose that’s par for the course when it comes to Black history, huh?
Juneteenth is the celebration of the freedom of the last of the enslaved African Americans that took place on June 19, 1865 — notably two full years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed into order. Many Black people have been celebrating it for well over a century now, but it has never received the national recognition (or paid time off) that Independence Day gets.
Yet as Frederick Douglass brought up in his famous 1852 speech “What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July”: What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Celebrating a commemoration of freedom that doesn’t include people like me rings hollow. I’m interested in holidays that carry meanings I can get behind.
So this year I decided to think about what I need to be “free” from and focus on building that space for myself this June 19th.
