Holiday is for everyone to celebrate
Strawberry soda. Savory BBQ. Collard greens. Sweet corn. Watermelon. Cherry pie. My father was a Black Texan. My mother was a Black Arkansan. When they migrated to California, they brought with them traditions passed down through ancestors from West Africa and the Congo. My parents understood the powerful symbol the color red expressed on the table: a reminder of the sacrifices endured. This is my Juneteenth. This month, the nation will join in celebrating Juneteenth, a federal holiday that acknowledges when enslaved Black people in Texas were finally freed on June 19, 1865 — more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Starting next year, my home institution and my alma mater, the University of the Pacific, will celebrate Juneteenth as a holiday.
As a child, I thought Juneteenth was a celebration solely for African Americans. In time, I would learn that Juneteenth is for everyone.
I was 8 when my mother explained to me what Juneteenth meant: “It’s when Black people got freed.” She continued,
“but they didn’t want us to know it.” To this day, her answer is the best description of the importance of Juneteenth that I’ve ever encountered.
The first part of my mother’s response was about the opportunity that comes only when we are invited into a place of critical reflection: the remembrance of our ancestors, why they mattered and how we celebrate their resistance and ingenuity, and share what they passed down to us — symbolic foods, culturally informed identities and racially affirming pride.
The second part of her response — “But they didn’t want us to know it ”—isa critical analysis, urging us to pay close attention to how inequality happens and to take action.
With a mere eight words, my mother provided a historically informed and equity-focused context to think about and examine persistent inequality. Her analysis exposed why racism endures and how it is enacted by people within institutions to maintain the status quo. She reminded me that we stay oppressed only when we are unaware of this inequitable paradigm.
Her revelation on the importance of the holiday has stayed with me: Juneteenth exists as a symbol of pride and a warning of injustice — affirming and cautionary at the same time.
And this teaching expands past Juneteenth.
We need critical frameworks — like the one my mother embodied organically, out of necessity — that can quickly name oppressive systems, identify what keeps them in place, and then mobilize to disrupt, intervene and foment change. We must understand that oppressive systems work to hinder everyone’s ability to thrive, regardless of race. A framework that confronts them is anti-racist and aspirational at its core and requires us all to engage in critical reflection.
Juneteenth is a day for each person to remember what their family contributed and endured to build America. It is a holiday that invites us to think deeply on what freedom and liberty mean and what must be done to fulfill our obligations for the greater good. The spirit of Juneteenth calls for mindfulness to learn how socioeconomic forces work to either impede or propel our collective joy and prosperity.
Juneteenth is a time for us to celebrate traditions and re-center a righteousness that extends to every culture and community in the United States. Indeed, it is a great thing to celebrate “when we got freed,” yet my hope is that each person will take time to understand how Juneteenth is as much their holiday as it is mine, reflecting on who we are and who we can become.