Women Watch Afrika Celebrates JUNETEENTH and stands firm in the Ongoing Struggle for Racial Equality and Equity

Today is Juneteenth and it is a day for celebration.  It is also a day of reflection, community, and affirmations.

It was 156 years ago, when a Union general informed a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, that they had been made free two years earlier by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War and that the Civil War had ended two months ago with the surrender of the Confederacy.

However, slavery did not end that day. It took the ratification of the 13th Amendment later that year on December 6, 1865, for the abolition of slavery to be written in the books. Even still, racism, racial injustice, inequity, inequality and injustice continued through the Jim Crow era and continues today (one only needs to see new voting laws, or recall the February 2021 Domestic Terrorist Attacks at the nation’s Capitol).

Still, today is extra special because Juneteenth has been made an Official National Holiday, and this is the first year of the official holiday.  While the day had always been celebrated by Black people and had been acknowledged by some States, it is a happy occasion to have it acknowledged by the country as a whole.

This week, Congress voted overwhelmingly (415-14 in the House; and unanimously in the Senate) to pass the law to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. That’s symbolic progress, but this is far from enough to make up for generations of discrimination and chronic and systemic racial inequality.   This new federal holiday will serve as a strong reminder that we cannot run from our past and that current and future generations must continue the struggle for racial justice.

As we celebrate the ending of slavery in America, we look ahead to our ongoing fight for racial justice and how important it is for each of us to do our part.

There is still much work to be done.  The struggle for freedom and the fight against racism continues.  But today, we acknowledge the ones that came before us, the successes in this fight, and we celebrate the accomplishments.