It’s still Black Music Month and days after Juneteenth, so it’s only appropriate to reference the late, great Donny Hathaway to reflect on the true meaning of freedom.
In 2021, President Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a national holiday. Juneteenth marks the moment when the final enslaved people in Texas learned of their liberation in June 1865.
“Today, we consecrate Juneteenth for what it ought to be, what it must be: a national holiday,” Biden said on June 17, 2021. “A holiday that will join the others of our national celebrations: our independence, our laborers who built this nation, our servicemen and women who served and died in its defense. And the first new national holiday since the creation of Martin Luther King Holiday nearly four decades ago.”
While the holiday celebrates freedom, it carries the tragic truth that for two-and-a-half years, people remained enslaved, facing dehumanizing and fatal instances and conditions.
At the 2023 Juneteenth Honors, award recipient Tamika Mallory reflected on the double-or-more-injustices the illegally enslaved Texans faced.
“Two years later, some of our people still didn’t know they were free, and that’s very powerful, when you think about the thugs that were holding them captive,” Mallory said in her acceptance speech.
The renowned activist considered all the oppression Black people face to this day.
“It made me think about all the people in our communities that still don’t know they’re free, because even today, what we experience, what we feel, the oppression, the pain, the abuse, the rape, the murder still continues,” Mallory added.
It’s hard to celebrate liberation when all people aren’t free.
In the celebrated words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere,” or as Fannie Lou Hamer famously noted, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
Juneteenth, in itself, proves that “inescapable network of mutuality,” Dr. King talks about when examining the meaning of true freedom.
For instance, the District of Columbia was the first place Lincoln signed legislation freeing enslaved Black residents on April 16, 1862– known in the District as Emancipation Day. However, the national and more renowned holiday– Juneteenth– commemorates the day when the last group of enslaved people learned of their freedom.
As systemic racism persists, and with legislative efforts to reverse rights, erase history and enforce oppressive ideals, are all people truly free? Or consider Washingtonians, who are taxed without voting representation in the House and Senate– are D.C. residents fully free?
While we celebrate the semblances of liberties in this country, it is also important to consider necessary steps toward true freedom.
If people focus on true liberation for all, then perhaps there’s hope that Donny Hathaway was right that “someday we’ll all be free.”
In a world where lawmakers are trying to erase the teaching of slavery and racism in this country, it might seem like a far stretch at times to consider true freedom as a reality; but optimism is what leads to action, which can ultimately lead to change.