You Can't Separate Juneteenth From the Call for Reparations

Freedom in the United States has always arrived in stages, declared in one space and denied or delayed in another. Such was the reality for formerly enslaved Texans who learned of their emancipation in 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation and the same year he issued his “40 acres and a mule” promise. Indeed, Juneteenth is as old as the call for reparations. Flashforward to 2021, and the bill that established Juneteenth as a national holiday and H.R. 40, the proposal to establish a commission to study reparations, reached Congress. The former...