Thoughts on Juneteenth 2024

Juneteenth

By Marc W. Polite

Good morning, everyone. This quick piece is brought to you via a stream of consciousness. Today is Juneteenth, and it’s a holiday intended to recognize the end of slavery in the United States.

Commercially, it has become something else, and many feel as though it’s watered down. Juneteenth seems a little gentrified, doesn’t it?

As someone who recalls writing about Juneteenth and attending events around the day before it became an official holiday, it is astonishing how quickly the day has become about everything except what it was meant to be about.

Juneteenth is not about kissing the hands of elected officials. To wrest it from the hands of the opportunists, Juneteenth should be about commemorating the end of chattel slavery in the U.S., and recognizing how far we have to go in the Black American struggle for equality.

Election year or not, the struggle continues.

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