JUNETEENTH

Juneteenth Emancipation Day Celebration, June 19, 1900, Texas. Source: Wikipedia. Public Domain.

If there are any lessons to be garnered from Juneteenth, a holiday that commemorates the announcement of the freedom of slaves in Texas nearly three years after the Emancipation Proclamation, it is that the work of anti-racism, anti-bigotry, and the battle for civil rights is never over.

Civil rights and racial equality were not some sort of fait-accompli after the freeing of slaves in Texas on this day in 1865, nor after the ratification of the 13th amendment later that year, nor after the signing of the Civil Rights Act nearly one hundred years later, in 1964. The battle rages on, vividly apparent as the present moment struggles to remind itself that Black Lives Matter.

Every positive milestone on the path of progress contains fault lines within it, much like this week’s landmark decision from the Supreme Court regarding the application of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to LGBTQ+ employment protections and its vagueness around religious exemption. Bigots who find themselves on the wrong side of history when it comes to civil rights will continually do their best to exploit and widen those cracks in an effort to return society to what they think of as a “golden age”. It is the responsibility of everyone to ensure that doesn’t happen. Complacency is complicity. Silence on this front is violence.

We must remain steadfast. We must remain vigilant. We must continue to soldier on.

Black Lives Matter.

Here’s to an unimpeded path of progress, toward continued change for the better.

Marian Anderson sings ‘Es ist vollbracht’ (All is Fulfilled) from Bach’s St. John Passion