This is a special Juneteenth! It is a special Juneteenth because you survived a pandemic, you survived historic poor air quality, and you are still here. You have made it due to the systemic resistance that’s coursing through your veins by your ancestors that survived the Middle Passage and eventually fought for our freedom. Juneteenth is a celebration of our ancestors’ role in taking up arms to attain the freedoms that they were more than entitled to. Juneteenth is not a celebration of anyone letting us know we were free and it is very important to draw a distinction between the two. We all know the revisions that America would try to make to our very own stories of freedom. Remember Juneteenth wasn’t recognized by America until 2020-21 although it had been celebrated for over 150 years.
And this only happened because America saw an opportunity to use its power of recognition to mollify the masses again. The masses in 2020 were calling for defunding the police, they called for dismantling police departments, they called for critical race theory to be taught in schools and they called for reparations! Of all the demands of the masses, making Juneteenth a recognized city, state, and then federal holiday is only significant because it underscores the call for all of these demands but more importantly reparations. Juneteenth has been celebrated without recognition of many states and the federal government since the first celebrations took place. Its ultimate connection to reparations should renew our call for repair and restitution by our community. The holiday being recognized must incite and renew the call every year.
Reparations, very simply, is a debt owed. It’s owed to our ancestors and we must be the ones to bring it to fruition. The long line of reparations awareness and organizing extends from its roots to Juneteenth by Callie D. House, by Queen Mother Moore, James Foreman and countless other groups and individuals. They fought like the now nameless soldiers in the civil war to push the dial forward to attain what America owes to every last descendant that forcibly built this country. Today that continues in the countless programs held by organizations that have been on the front lines for the past 30+ years, that saw these now ancestors and learned from them. Organizations like N’COBRA, the Institute of the Black World, and the December 12th movement have held countless rallies, information sessions, and community actions to bring reparations closer to attainment.
This continuum of the fight has to be seen in every celebration of Juneteenth or else the symbolism of freedom will be empty. Fighters like Council Member Charles Barron have taken up the baton in recent memory in the NYS Assembly to create a community commission to study reparations and provide remedies for New York State’s role in the slave trade. It is the journey of this work that led to the passage of the most recent bill that passed both the Senate and the Assembly although it doesn’t allow the community to lead the commission as was the original intent. Juneteenth is our annual reminder that we are owed and it must be paid by any means necessary.
“What to the slave is the 4th of July” is a historical rhetorical mic drop by formerly enslaved abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, as he referred to the lack of significance that the 4th of July has to him and millions of other African people in America. This and the full speech is one of the greatest rebukes of American historical sleight of hand with historical facts and forced patriotism on millions of Africans in America. When we celebrate Juneteenth we must reflect and rebuke all false symbols meant to soften the call for reparations. Reparations cannot be mistaken for stimulus checks, reparations cannot be mistaken for any “first Black,” and overall reparations is not any form of symbolic change that at its surface can be mistaken for progress. They stole us. They sold us. They owe us!
Reparations now! Happy Juneteenth!
Keron Alleyne is co-chair of Operation P.O.W.E.R. and deputy chief of staff for Council Member Charles Barron.