This week the US Congress passed and President Biden signed into law the establishment of June 19th as a federal holiday.

In 1863, during the American Civil War, Pres. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared more than three million slaves living in the Confederate states to be free. More than two years would pass, however, before the news reached African Americans living in Texas. It was not until Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, that the state’s residents finally learned that slavery had been abolished. The former slaves immediately began to celebrate with prayer, feasting, song, and dance. (sourced from Encyclopedia Britannica)

While I applaud the decision of the US Congress to establish June 19th as a federal holiday, it strikes me as only one of need reforms to address our countries historic and current racism. Holiday’s help us tell stories, which is good. The hope and the need in my view is to further the movement with economic and legal reforms that fully embrace all person in this country, most particularly those who have disenfranchised.