JUNETEENTH

Former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice has written about growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, the most segregated city in the US at that time, where her father could not be assured his vote would count, and people of color could not go to the movies, sit at a lunch counter or go to school alongside white children. She was eight years old when the 16th Street Baptist Church, where her father was the pastor, was bombed killing four children, two of whom she knew.

Although slavery had officially ended on June 19, 1865 it wasn’t until 2021 when Congress voted unanimously to make the date of June 19 a federal holiday naming it JUNETEENTH. While many may question the need for this newly proclaimed federal holiday, Condolezza Rice writes, “To me Juneteenth is a recognition of what I call America’s second founding.”

I recently finished a moving and informative novel called “Sweetness of Water” depicting the struggles of both white and black neighbors living in the South soon after the emancipation. Perhaps today we can take a moment as Condolezza’s family did yearly, to think about how those who had been born into slavery felt after learning of their freedom. She adds “And I will give thanks for being born in a country where such moral progress is possible. That is worth celebrating not just by black Americans but by all of us.”

-Harriet