This weekend, communities across the country honor a day passed down for generations long before it was federally recognized — June 19, 1865, when the last enslaved people in Texas finally learned they were free, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Marking this day means looking at what is happening in our country right now. The Voting Rights Act is being dismantled. Redistricting efforts are eliminating Black representation. Progress won through decades of organizing is being rolled back. Every one of us has a role in pushing back — and this is the moment to step into it.
Enslaved people did not wait to be freed. They resisted — through rebellion, through escape, through acts of daily defiance. African Americans have been at the forefront of the struggle for civil rights, equity, and justice, and remain there today.
The people we honor today knew that freedom is not conditional. They celebrated, and they kept fighting.
So do we. We register voters. We build community, knowing that momentum alone is never enough.
Today we honor those who waited, who survived, who built something out of a freedom long overdue. And we recommit to protecting every vote, by every means available to us.