Marking progress on Juneteenth
While Virginia has made important strides, there’s still more to do
The decision in 2020 to designate Juneteenth as a state holiday in Virginia was meaningful and important. For the former capital of the Confederacy and the home of massive resistance to recognize the value of Emancipation Day, especially to Black Virginians, felt like a pivotal moment for the commonwealth.
Still, as many leaders and activists said at the time, making Juneteenth a holiday isn’t itself enough. Symbols carry weight but are no substitute for tangible progress to address systemic racism and discrimination. And while Virginia did advance those causes in recent years, it must dedicate itself to preserving those hard-won gains against forces determined to roll them back.
Sunday marks the occasion when, in 1865, Union forces reached Galveston, Texas, and informed enslaved Black residents about President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years earlier. The order freed slaves in those states rebelling against the United States and had the purpose of encouraging the enslaved to pursue freedom.
Those events have special resonance here in Hampton Roads, where the first Africans arrived in North America in 1619.
Escaped slaves fled to the Union stronghold of Fort Monroe in Hampton shortly after hostilities began. The fort’s commander, Union Maj Gen. Benjamin Butler, classified them as “contraband of war” and refused to allow Confederates to claim them, which encouraged more to seek refuge at “Freedom’s Fortress.”
Camps of formerly enslaved people occupied land around the fort. Mary Peake, a free Black woman from Norfolk, began
teaching the children there how to read under a large tree. It would become known as the Emancipation Oak, the site of the first Southern reading of Lincoln’s proclamation, located on what is now the campus of Hampton University.
So Juneteenth, though traditionally an occasion celebrated in Texas and in Black communities, has a strong connection to Virginia and Hampton Roads. Formalizing that bond, as the General Assembly and Gov. Ralph Northam did in 2020, was consequential.
That legislation passed after a summer of protests that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in May of that year. The outrage that followed represented a potent call for action — to end systemic racism, to reform the criminal justice system and to ensure equality under the law for all Americans.
There were places where police and protesters clashed violently. But focusing exclusively on those incidents is more often than not an attempt to minimize or ignore the principled demand for justice and fairness, for liberty and equality.
Virginia made progress on many issues in the wake of the Floyd protests. The General Assembly passed legislation empowering police review boards with subpoena power, reforming criminal sentencing, reducing the number of infractions used as pretexts for traffic stops and vehicle searches, and allowing inmates more opportunities to reduce their sentences through good behavior.
There were other changes to state government, including the creation of an Office of Civil Rights under the attorney general, a focus on increasing state support for historically Black colleges and universities, and education equity programs intended to help close the racial achievement gap in public schools.
And those protests prompted communities, such as those in Hampton Roads, to rethink the symbols and people we consecrate by honoring them in our public squares and on our public buildings. Making Juneteenth a holiday falls in this sphere — an important and powerful but still symbolic act.
All of those efforts advanced the cause of racial justice. They moved the nation toward equality. But those determined to reverse even that modest progress — to roll back reforms, eliminate equity programs and limit any gains to the ceremonial rather than the substantive — are relentless.
It’s important on Juneteenth to celebrate progress and marvel at how far we’ve come, but also to reject complacency and fiercely oppose efforts to see this momentum stopped. Symbolic gains have their value, but we should not rest until the blessings of liberty and full citizenship are enjoyed by all Americans.