This year marks 160 years since Union Major General Gordon Granger issued the order that officially proclaimed the freedom of the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas. All across the country, Juneteenth celebrations are commemorating this historic milestone of the Black liberation movement.
Mainstream history tells us that Abraham Lincoln is responsible for having freed the slaves by signing the Emancipation Proclamation. This whitewashing of our history of resistance is meant to detract from the true power that working and oppressed people have always held and weaponized in the name of freedom. For those of us who know the real history, we know that nobody freed the slaves but themselves. Decades of righteous struggle that culminated in the Civil War and ultimately a glorious victory for the multiracial Union army is what really ended slavery.
In 2021, Juneteenth became a federally recognized holiday as a response to the rebellion against racism that swept the nation in 2020. Juneteenth being a holiday, however, does not detract from the deep inequality that persists between the Black population and the heirs of the slavocracy.
Today, as Donald Trump and his administration of racist billionaires wage war on Black, immigrant and working class communities, attempting to sow division while stripping us of our rights gained historically through struggle, it is as critical as ever to remember what revolutionary Black freedom fighter Assata Shakur told us:
It is our duty to fight for our freedom
The greatest way to honor the legacy of those who have fought before us – for the end of slavery, for civil rights, for affirmative action and for the end to racist police repression – is to recommit to the fight for Black liberation within our lifetime!
Feature image: Liberation photo
