06/18/2026
Celebrate Juneteenth as a day dedicated to learning about Black self-determination, Black self-help, Black community building, and Black institution building. We practiced these cultural values before-, during-, and after-slavery. Corporations will attempt to shape and influence how Juneteenth is celebrated for financial gain.
It is our responsibility to ensure our children embrace the true spirit of Juneteenth. It is not a holiday to celebrate freedom. It’s a holiday to recognize that we fought like hell for freedom; it took centuries of struggle to end racial chattel slavery in the African diaspora.
Our children need intimate knowledge on how we resisted enslavement, how we engaged in self-emancipation efforts, and how we continued to fight for freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation, after the Civil War, after the passage of the War amendments, after the US reneged on Reconstruction, and after the US blanketed the country with both legal and normative Jim Crow segregation. We are obligated and accountable to pass on this knowledge to our children, to our families, and to our communities. It is our responsibility to ensure Juneteenth stands for something other than a day off, a barbecue, a party, or some other superficial celebratory activity that contributes Zero to Black self-determination, Black self-help, Black community building, and Black institution building.
When our ancestors stepped on the stage of a quasi, limited, second-class freedom, they understood that NOTHING would be given to them and that this country continued to believe Black was synonymous with slave and that Black Americans were not worthy of voting rights, economic prosperity, quality education, good housing, first-rate health care, and the like. We knew that we were in a life-or-death struggle to save ourselves and our children from universal disenfranchisement, illiteracy and inferior schooling, poverty, imprisonment, inadequate health care, poor housing, police brutality, lynching, mob violence, and a host other racist, anti-American, anti-Democratic practices aimed at keeping Black Americans in “Slavery by Another Name”.
We resisted “Slavery by Another Name” by opening schools, colleges, community centers, churches and other faith-based institutions. We established neighborhoods and towns where we opened businesses to meet the needs of a newly emancipated people. We took responsibility for our civic duties by voting and protesting against politics and policies designed to re-enslave us. We valued family and community and raised our children with race pride that was based on these four priorities or cultural values:
1. God
2. Family
3. Education
4. Business/Entrepreneurship
Black self-determination, Black self-help, Black community building, and Black institution building are built on these four priorities. Freedom is built on these four cultural values. Freedom is not a t-shirt or a catchy slogan. It’s control over your destiny as a people. Let us celebrate Juneteenth with thoughts and behaviors that demonstrate our commitment to advancing the kingdom of God, strengthening families, fighting for quality education, and pushing economic development and financial wellness.
Happy Juneteenth! May God bless you, your home, and your commitment.