Juneteenth—celebrated June 19 in the United States—marks the day those held in slavery were told they had been freed. The date commemorates June 19, 1865, when it was announced that tens of thousands of African-Americans in Texas had been emancipated, and for all its significance is only one step in the complex and painful history of racial inequality in the US. Today, Juneteenth remembers that day and the events that led up to it, educates Americans about history and current events central to the Black community, and is a time Black Americans come together to celebrate their resilience, culture, and progress.
We’ve put together a collection of articles and stories centering on Juneteenth—family stories; celebrations of black womanhood; the economic, political, societal, and deeply personal pressures still faced by Black Americans today; and how to respect and observe the holiday, including a petition for Juneteenth to be recognized as a national holiday. We honor Black women and the entire Black community today, and we pledge to work to listen, respect, celebrate, and amplify Black voices.
One Woman’s Quest to Make Juneteenth a National Holiday, from NPR—“A 90-year-old Texas woman is trying to make Juneteenth, a holiday that honors the freedom of slaves, a national holiday. She’s walked around the country and will end her petition in Washington, D.C.”
10 Ways To Observe Juneteenth This Year, from Women’s Health—“So if you’re a Black American—this is our Independence Day, and it deserves to be observed. If you’re worried about how the novel coronavirus pandemic will affect Juneteenth this year, and maybe some of your plans got cancelled already—don’t worry. There are plenty of ways you can still take part. How? Well, you can start by signing 93-year-old activist Opal Lee’s petition to make Juneteenth a national holiday, which is long overdue.”
This Juneteenth, We Should Uplift America’s Black Businesses, from The Brookings Institution—“Women—and specifically, Black women—were also underrepresented as business owners in the survey. Women represent more than half of the U.S. population, but they owned only one in five businesses (just over 1.1 million) in 2017. This was about the same proportion as it was in 2012. Black women owned less than 1 percent (one in 130) of the nation’s businesses in 2017, even though Black women made up 6.6 percent of the country’s population.”
Ida, Maya, Rosa, Harriet: The Power in Our Names, from The New York Times—“For nearly two centuries, Black women passed on names as remembrances of struggles for freedom, dignity and citizenship. We can find these stories in articles, textbooks, museum exhibits and even popular culture. But the lives of these sheroes are not being newly discovered in the 21st century. Instead, they are inherited from women who handed them down to inspire next generations. Passed along, from mothers to daughters to granddaughters, our names carry with them visions of freedom.”
In Miss Juneteenth, a Mother’s Dream Deferred, from The New Republic—“Though the tension between mother and daughter remains center stage, Miss Juneteenth’s broader subject turns out to be the political economics of surviving as a black woman in Texas.”
How 13 Black Women Are Celebrating Juneteenth This Year, from Cosmopolitan—“Over the years, Americans have honored the day in beautifully diverse ways from participating in Juneteenth parades to attending rodeos to making the journey down to Galveston with their families. But this year is remarkably different than years past. This year, Juneteenth falls amid unprecedented demonstrations and support for the Black Lives Matter movement following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Oluwatoyin ‘Toyin’ Salau, Dominique ‘Rem’mie’ Fells, Riah Milton, Ahmaud Arbery, and multiple hangings. […] I’m dedicating the day to signing petitions to demand justice for Black lives and defunding the police, researching which brands I consume that benefit from inhumane prison labor, and discovering more Black-owned businesses. Here’s how other Black women are planning to spend the day.”
