Remembering Our Ancestors' Dreams
On June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, a US federal proclamation was read, notifying people of African descent that all were free and that slavery had been abolished. This date has since been commemorated as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, Emancipation Day, and Juneteenth. The earliest Juneteenth celebration is recorded as 1867. (This video gives more context for Juneteenth.) This Juneteenth, we celebrate those who have yet to be celebrated as the protagonists of the American tale.
In recent days, the current administration has shared its intent to bring an end to all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across the federal government. For many, this signals a significant shift—a change not just in policy, but in posture. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is one tool that has been used to promote equity, not equality, in many sectors of life, faith, and commerce.
There was a time when we sought equality, which meant giving everyone the same. But equity seeks to lift the burdened, offering support where it’s most needed, so that all may stand and strive on level ground. To remove that mercy—to dismantle the support equity offers—is not neutrality but harm. To erase the justice that restores balance is to pervasively continue to oppress the oppressed. It is to ignore the weight others carry and call the fight fair, while some still run with chains. Our national moral compass is broken.
“How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” (Psalm 137:4). God’s people in Babylonian exile expressed grief and a longing for home. They wondered how joy could be expressed in their social location and diasporic condition. I am lamenting in solidarity with this biblical narrative. How can we celebrate Juneteenth as we watch our nation roll back freedoms already won? How can we sing in a strange land?
Each generation of African ancestors that led to us looked forward with hope in the face of oppression and death. The captured African in the interior of the continent had freedom on their mind and fought for its becoming. My distraught ancestor made it to the coastal “door of no return,” with a mind to get back to the place of their origin, where the ancestors they loved sang as a cloud of witnesses to their identity and dignity.
That ancestor survived the middle passage, the Maafa (Swahili word meaning “great tragedy”), to set foot on the land of a horrific new beginning. The impending nightmare was glazed with a hope and memory of good times passed on native soil. Carrying on through misery and tear-stained glimmers of joy, they bore separation from child, spouse, family, and friend, as well as dehumanization, brutal abuse, and torture. But they were emboldened by the dream of a next generation in order to take another step forward. They celebrated a God of liberty to invigorate the fight for their lives. Their commodified bodies became wombs for a resilient next generation. They believed in the strength of community to wield a warring voice of freedom. At every turn, those in my ancestral line made a choice that formed me—that is worth celebrating. How can we sing in a strange land? We remember.
This Juneteenth, we remember freedoms won and our ancestors who fought for them. We celebrate the fight and the courage. We celebrate the tenacity that never gave up hope for freedom. Make space as Black people celebrate that freedom is literally written in the genetic code of their DNA.
I am my ancestors’ wildest dream. Maya Angelou said it this way: “Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. [And so because he rose] I rise. I rise. I rise.” Rise and celebrate Freedom—that has been and will be.
A version of this content originally appeared in the Freedom Friday email from Love Mercy Do Justice.
