Despite the lies we tell ourselves, America has never been the land of the free nor the home of the brave. It has never fully welcomed the tired, the poor, or the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It spoke of liberty while enslaving Black people and put forth a declaration of independence while harshly mistreating and oppressing Indigenous people. We are a nation of contradiction and a country in need of a true revolution. We pledge our allegiance to a flag while we discriminate against the people who have helped to hold this flag up from the beginning.
America, as Langston Hughes wrote, has never been America to us. At least not the America that is seen through the lens of White supremacy, the veil of capitalism, and the stench of White mediocrity being centered at the expense of Black genius being celebrated. It is the other America, the one that exists in the realm of our radical imagination, that we believe in. The America that we have been fighting for, that our grandparents prayed for, and our ancestors hoped for. We have never gotten there, but there was a sense, at least before J20 (Inauguration Day 2025), that we were at least using that idea of America as our North Star.
That is no longer the case because the America we once knew no longer exists. We are closer to the America of my grandmothers’ childhood than the America of mine. The past 130+ days have been driven and dictated by elected and appointed officials (many of whom are unqualified for the jobs they have been gifted with) wielding pens and releasing executive (dis)orders. We are rapidly moving through the five stages of grief, from denial to anger to bargaining to depression and, now, acceptance.
At this moment, on Juneteenth 2025, I can loudly state that It is neither my job nor my desire to hold onto or save the broken, unfulfilled notion of democracy that existed before J20. America was hanging on by the threads long before 47 ripped it apart. It is a fractured nation, but within these broken pieces, if we look closely, we can find the beauty and resilience of our people.
We were brought here to this stolen land, and we were not meant to survive, but we did. We were beaten and raped, tortured and sold, but we survived. We were lied to and cheated, miseducated and overlooked, but we survived. We have taken the ugliness of this nation and turned it into music and dance, into soul food and sunshine. We are survivors, and on this Juneteenth, we take comfort in knowing that we are writing our own story. We are turning away from the chaos and confusion and turning toward each other. We rest when we need to, and we resist as often as we can. We are not being driven forward by hands that have never held a plow or reached out toward our children, but we are plotting our path, using the stars and generational memory to guide us. We are more than the stories that they try to tell about us. We will continue to survive and thrive because we have survived and thrived, and we are surviving and thriving.
On behalf of ASALH, may your Juneteenth be filled with joy, love, laughter, rest, good food, and good friends.
We will fight again tomorrow, but we are taking our much-needed rest today.
I share here my conversation with Errin Haines from the 19th news website about my thoughts on Juneteenth:
‘We don’t wait to be celebrated’: What Juneteenth means this year
The president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History on rest, resistance and remembering.
What does it mean to celebrate emancipation in a political era marked by rollbacks of civil rights and diversity policies?
KWW: This is why it’s even more important that we take a moment to stop and understand the significance of Juneteeth. Juneteenth, as a holiday, has been celebrated within the Black communities of Texas and Louisiana since right after American slavery ended. They did not wait for it to be a holiday. That is really the message of the American historical narrative. It is the people that lead the government. It’s not government leading the people. It is “We the People.” And Juneteenth is a great example of that.
If we don’t center the teaching and the understanding of Black history, if we don’t amplify it, if we don’t force it onto America’s agenda, then it can be erased. People don’t understand that if you erase the contributions of Black people to America, you are essentially erasing the American historical narrative, because Black history is American history. It is tied to the fabric that makes up the blanket of this country.
Juneteenth is a celebration. It is a time of firing up the grill, it is a time to line dance, of getting out the fans, and celebrating the beauty and the wonder and the joy that is essentially in the heart of Black culture. Our culture is not rooted in just tears and tragedy and trauma and slavery and oppression and lynching. Our culture is rooted in joy and laughter and tenacity and the ability to overcome and find places of happiness despite what the situation is around us.
You’ve spoken and written powerfully about memory as resistance. How does celebrating Juneteenth become a form of resistance in a time of historical erasure?
KWW: I argue that you only have four choices right now. You fight, which to me means practicing small, daily acts of resistance. You have flight: If you have an exit plan, you activate it — and most folks do not. You freeze, and you pretend that everything is normal and that you pretend you can’t do anything. Or you fawn: You bend your knee and you kiss the ring and say, “I support this administration.”
I’m telling people, choose to fight and practice small, daily acts of resistance. Unfortunately, in this environment, celebrating Juneteenth is an act of resistance. I believe that this moment is about both reclaiming the historical memory, but it’s also about a moment of looking forward, because if we stand right now and say that we’re not going to be erased, we are holding fast to our memory, we’re holding fast to our history, we’re holding fast to our contributions, then we’re laying the groundwork, setting up the framework for what’s going to come next.
If Juneteenth is a mirror, what should we be reflecting on this year?
KWW: I would not say Juneteenth is a mirror; I would say Juneteenth is a prism into what we used to be, into who we are now, and into who we can be. I think Juneteenth this year should be a space of radical imagination. It is clear that whatever this form of “democracy” has been, it does not exist anymore. I don’t want to go back to that. That was not a space of freedom, equality and diversity. That was not a space where we could rest.
So since that system is collapsing all around us, let’s use Juneteenth as a moment of radical imagination. What should come next? What exactly are we working for? Because at times I ask myself, “What am I fighting to save?” We need to have a plan for how we go forward, not their plan, but our plan. That’s how we should celebrate and uplift Juneteenth: Throw up the grill, party, get the fans going — and then while people are sitting around the table and they’re passing the beans and the corn, say, “What should come next?” Let’s get some plans on paper. Let’s start getting people into the room to have these conversations. Standing still is not what we want to do at this moment.
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