Black lawmakers commemorate Juneteenth with message of historical importance

Lawmakers on Monday commemorated the 158th anniversary of Juneteenth by promoting unity and ending systems of oppression around the nation. 

Juneteenth, the day in which the final enslaved peoples were freed in Galveston, Texas, was declared a federal holiday in 2021. It was the first federal holiday to be named since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. 

“Frederick Douglass famously posed the question, ‘What to a slave is July 4?’” said Rep. Richie Torres (D-N.Y.) on the House floor on Monday. “Juneteenth is to Black America what July 4 has exclusively been to white America: Independence Day.”

“For me, Juneteenth contains a deeper lesson that we ignore at our own peril,” Torres continued. “Law becomes real not when it is proclaimed, but when it is enforced. The Emancipation of enslaved people became real not when it was proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln, but when it was enforced by the Union Army, most notably on Juneteenth.”

He added that desegregation of public schools “became real” not through the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, but rather when it was enforced – most notably when the National Guard was sent to Little Rock, Arkansas, to escort the Little Rock Nine in 1957. Similarly, Torres said, voting rights “became real” when the Voting Rights Act enforced the 15th Amendment. 

“The lesson of Juneteenth is that an activist federal government is an essential defender of human rights and civil rights,” Torres concluded on Monday. “It's an essential defender of equality and dignity and humanity for all Americans.”

Vice President Harris also recognized Monday’s holiday, tweeting that the day was a moment to remember “that America is a promise –– a promise of freedom, liberty, and justice. The story of Juneteenth, as we celebrate it, is the story of our ongoing fight to realize that promise: not for some, but for all.”

Though the city of Galveston has celebrated Juneteenth since 1866, the push to make the day a federal holiday dates back more than 100 years. Today, it’s not only recognized by the federal government, but some also by states.

“The President's [2021] Proclamation was not the first time we celebrated Juneteenth, a holiday known to many Black Americans since its first celebrations in Galveston, Texas in 1866 — celebrations such as church gatherings, food festivals, community events, and many more that spread around the South,” Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in a video.

The Great Migration and civil rights movement, he added, brought more awareness of this holiday throughout the United States. Now, Horsford said, Nevada will recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday as well. 

Juneteenth has also grown in popularity over the last few years, particularly after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. After Floyd’s murder, activist Opal Lee, who at the time was 94 years old, created a petition urging the federal government to honor the day as a national holiday. The petition earned more than 1.6 million signatures, and in 2021 the holiday was approved in a unanimous Senate vote and a bipartisan 415-14 House vote; the 14 “no” votes were all from Republicans. 

This year, the holiday is facing new challenges in the form of both political attacks on the need to understand Black history and diversity, and the mixed emotions of becoming a more commercial holiday.

“Our nation is in its third year of recognizing this important date this year, as some try to erase our history struggles and truth from school textbooks and libraries,” said Horsford. 

“We are celebrating the meaning of duty once again as the Federal holiday that is long deserved to be and I'll continue working to preserve our democracy and our precious right to vote to all the people of Nevada and everywhere across the country. I wish you a happy Juneteenth and I hope that you take the time to celebrate, to educate and to learn.”

For Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Juneteenth is important in speaking truth about the founding of the U.S. 

“While we are still fighting and have a long way to go…today we honor those who came before us and will celebrate how far we have come with honor and respect,” Lee tweeted. 

Sen. Cory Booker posted a video highlighting the story of Richard Allen, a man who was born enslaved who would go on to be elected to the Texas State legislature four years after the emancipation proclamation and helped found Emancipation Park. 

“This man and others created a sacred space to celebrate the greatest ideal in america: freedom,” said Booker. “Too many people want to obscure our history, not teach it: it’s wretched pain, it’s hurt and harms. But what they do is they cheapen the story of America. Our history, and all the difficulties, the power and strength it took to overcome that; the truth of who we are adds to our glory and our greatness. Let us celebrate freedom and truth and telling our story so that we may face the difficult future with more grit and strength and knowing that our ancestry empowers us to do impossible things.”