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F ³: What Kind of Freedom?

 


Today is Juneteenth. Freedom Day.


JUNETEENTH

FREEDOM DAY

We commemorate Juneteenth, on June 19, 1865, when enslaved peoples of African descent in Texas finally gained their freedom.

We remember them. We honor their memory. We celebrate freedom for all.

What kind of freedom?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - - Thomas Jefferson, from the Declaration of Independence 

Is this freedom?

Mississippi officer put on leave after killing baby in car outside Walmart, Marina Dunbar, The Guardian

Is this freedom?

Trump facing pressure to condemn UFC fighter for disparaging Michelle Obama, David Smith, The Guardian

Is this freedom?

Pete Hegseth removes all women and some Black service members from navy promotion list, Richard Luscombe, Joseph Gedeon and Aram Roston

What kind of freedom is that? 

Hold the words of Thomas Jefferson in one hand and those news stories in the other. Is this the kind of freedom that Jefferson envisioned for the readers of the Declaration?

Life? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness?

Today, on Juneteenth in the year 2026, what I see looks more like the freedom to be excluded, mocked, and hunted like prey.

But Black Americans deserve the kind of freedom that white people want for themselves and their children. Anything else makes the Declaration of Independence a lie and those who revere it complicit in the lie.

Black Americans deserve to be able to share the truth about their history in this country without censure. They deserve the freedom to learn, to share, to rage, to grieve, to celebrate their stories from generation to generation. We need to make it our responsibility to learn that truth, insist on that truth, to protect it from erasure or dilution.

What kind of freedom do we stand for? Whose freedoms do we actively defend? What good is a country that lies about its promises?

I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you, 
For the world to become good 
And beautiful and kind? 
Let us take a knife 
And cut the world in two-
And see what worms are eating 
At the rind.

- - Langston Hughes, 1931



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  1. Julia A. McCreadyJune 19, 2026 at 4:20 AM

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