Black advocates to use Juneteenth to demand political change

As the nation recognizes Juneteenth this year, leading Black voices plan to use the holiday to call for widespread political changes and protections for Black Americans.   

“It’s not lost on any of us in the fight for social justice that this Juneteenth comes at a time when every right we’ve won since the Civil War is under attack,” Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, told The Hill. 

Though President Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021, advocates have spent the last two years warning that civil rights for Black Americans are being washed away in a concerted effort.

“We are on the eve of the anniversary of the end of affirmative action, the Fearless Fund remains under legal attacks, and some Black politicians claim we were better off under Jim Crow,” Sharpton said. “Juneteenth is a commemoration of the end of slavery, but it must also serve as a continuation in our fight for freedom."

"We should also spend this holiday rededicating ourselves to not only protecting the rights our ancestors marched and in some cases died for, but also advancing those rights and enshrining them into law," he added.

What is Juneteenth?

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, declaring "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free.” 

But it took until June 19, 1865 for news of the Emancipation to reach Galveston, Texas. When Union soldiers arrived to enforce the order, the day became known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day — or simply: Juneteenth. 

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.

But it wasn’t until the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in 2020 that recognition of Juneteenth began to spread, according to Frederick Knight, a professor of history at Morehouse College.

“There was a sense that we need to, as a nation, have this racial reckoning,” Knight said. “With Biden’s presidency, he in many ways fulfilled at least one of the promises of that summer of racial reckoning.”

Advocates say now is the time to lean into the legacy of Juneteenth in order to push back on what appears to be a backlash to Black success. 

Juneteenth for political change

Wisdom Cole, senior national director of advocacy for the NAACP, said that in many ways, the last four years have been a political success for Black Americans.

Cole points to the White House's establishment of the first ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention late last year and the cancellation of billions of dollars in student loan debt.

Juneteenth, he said, is the time when these successes can be celebrated and used to combat limitations. 

“The impacts of Juneteenth and the impacts of freedom have to exist in our classrooms, exist in our boardrooms, exist in every single hall of power to ensure that there's opportunity for Black people to have access to that,” Cole noted. “Juneteenth’s legacy has to be more than just a day of rest. It has to be an opportunity for us to access the future that we so deserve here in America.”

Earlier this month, a U.S. federal court of appeals blocked the Fearless Fund, a Black-owned venture capitalist firm, from awarding grants exclusively to Black women entrepreneurs.

Meanwhile, education has come under the microscope as school districts have limited what aspects of Black history can be taught. 

Despite polling from the Black Education Research Center at Teachers College at Columbia University last fall finding that a majority of voters want Black studies curriculum and the history of racism and slavery, and its legacy, taught in K-12 public schools, 44 states have introduced bills to restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis.

African American history programs in Florida’s public schools are now required to teach students that Black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills. 

In 2022, a conservative Tennessee parent group sued local and state education leaders for curriculum that it said is “replete with racial discrimination, age-inappropriate material that causes children guilt, anguish, and other forms of psychological harm, it discusses the United States as an irredeemably racist country, and is overall hyper-focused on racial indoctrination.”

“It's important for us to teach Black history because our culture continues to carry the community forward,” Cole said. “We are the culture in America; we are the trendsetters. We are the ones who are advocating not just for our communities, but for all communities.”

Some, like the Biden-Harris reelection campaign, are using Juneteenth to encourage Black Americans to vote in the upcoming election. 

Juneteenth this year will be recognized as one of three National Days of Action on Voting. 

These days will focus on providing voters with the necessary information on how, where and when to vote, and will encourage students to register and cast their ballots. It also aims to counter voter-suppression tactics. 

The campaign’s tactics are unsurprising — both Biden and former President Trump are courting Black voters ahead of November. 

Biden has been struggling in recent polls to match the historic support Democratic presidential candidates have won from the key party demographic, but he will have the help of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) this week.

“We will be doing events all throughout our districts to uplift the work of freedom – freedom for students to learn our full history, the freedom for people to thrive economically, to start businesses, to own homes, to invest in their communities, the freedom to love who you love as we recognize Pride Month, and the freedom for women to continue to have the right to make their own health care choices over their body at a time when these freedoms are under assault and being eroded,” CBC Chair Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) told The Hill.

“We believe that it's not only a time to honor the holiday of Juneteenth, but what it means and what it signifies and the fact that every generation has to continue to fight to protect our freedom,” he added. 

The CBC especially plans to highlight the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. 

“​​What John R. Lewis really compels us to do every day is to protect our right to vote because that is the right by which every other right comes,” Horsford said.

Voting rights have remained a top-of-mind concern for Black leaders since the 2020 election. This year alone, at least 6 states have enacted 7 restrictive voting laws, making it harder for voters to cast their ballots, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. At least 291 restrictive bills have been considered in 40 states. 

But the CBC also plans to use the week of Juneteenth to promote its Black Wealth Agenda.

“Really, Black America wants the same thing as any other community – we want to thrive,” Horsford said. “We don't want to just survive, we want to thrive. This country was built on the backs of free labor of enslaved people, and Juneteenth is a recognition of the fact that they did earn their freedom, but that the systemic racism, discrimination, policies and institutions did not allow them to really live free."

"So the freedom that they gained, in one way, was still denied in other ways," he continued. "And so when we talk about generational wealth today, it's because we're trying to overcome those inequities that have existed in our country, sadly, for over 400 years.”