Much of the work needed to heal centuries of racist harm will take time. Finding our way to a more whole, more equitable future will take time, and contemplation, and strategy, and heart, and anger, and listening, and love, and all the determination and courage we as a community can muster.
Within this long journey, though, there are moments of simplicity.
One such moment of simplicity: This Friday, June 19th, is Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger informed enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War had ended and that they were free. More than two-and-a-half years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it finally took effect.
Starting this Friday, and every June 19th thereafter, Contemporary Media Inc. will mark Juneteenth as a holiday, in recognition of freedom, joy, and Black lives.
In a year that has felt often crushingly complex, it’s helpful to be reminded that sometimes progress looks like merely choosing to make the immediate changes we can, while keeping sight of farther-reaching goals.
