On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and delivered a message that should have been old news: all enslaved people were free.
That day became known as Juneteenth—a day of freedom, yes, but also of betrayal. The truth is this: we were freed, but they didn’t tell us. More than 250,000 Black men, women, and children remained in bondage in Texas long after they had been legally freed.
Enslaved people were never informed of Lincoln’s order because no one forced slave- holders to obey it. Instead, plantation owners continued to exploit Black labor, know- ing full well that their time was up—but refusing to acknowl- edge it until the Union Army was literally on their doorstep.
The story of Juneteenth is not just a celebration of freedom. It is a reckoning with America’s deliberate delays, its institutional silences, and the painful reality that freedom for Black people has never been freely given. It has always been delayed, distorted, or denied.
When we talk about Juneteenth today, it cannot just be about fireworks and federal holidays. It must be about the truth. That even when freedom was written on paper, it was hidden in practice. That those in power made an intentional decision to leave our ancestors in chains because it benefited them economically. That liberation was not granted—it was eventually forced.
And even after the word finally came, the chains never fully disappeared. The 13th Amendment, passed later in 1865, included a fatal loophole: slavery was abolished “except as punishment for a crime.” That clause opened the door to convict leasing, Jim Crow segregation, and mass incarceration—systems that continue to disproportionately target and dehumanize Black people to this day.
Juneteenth still hits hard because it is a reminder that freedom for us has always come late. We were freed, yet never given land. We were freed, yet blocked from education. We were freed, yet denied the right to vote. We were freed, yet still hunted by laws, policies, and lies designed to keep us eco- nomically and socially bound.
This day carries weight not just because of what happened in 1865, but because of everything that followed. After Juneteenth, Reconstruction offered a brief glimpse of what real progress could look like— Black legislators, Black-owned businesses, and Black communities building from nothing. But it was soon crushed by white supremacist violence and systemic rollback. From the fall of Black Wall Street in Tulsa to the rise of redlining and underfunded schools, every step toward Black advancement has been met with resistance.
And yet, we keep rising.
For generations, Black families have kept the spirit of Juneteenth alive through backyard barbecues, freedom parades,
