I’m a big fan of The Golden Girls. In fact, I watch it nightly before going to bed. Every time the character Sophia, played by the late Estelle Getty, tells a story, she starts with:
“Picture it…”
Then she names a location and a year.
So, borrowing from Sophia:
Picture it—Galveston, Texas, June 19th, 1865.
It was on that day that Major General Gordon Granger informed enslaved people in Texas that they were now free. Yes, the Emancipation Proclamation had technically freed enslaved people two and a half years earlier—on January 1st, 1863—but many slaveholders kept that truth hidden. Texas was the last state to receive word that slavery had officially ended.
Granger read aloud General Order No. 3, which stated:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.
This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.
The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
Can you imagine learning that slavery was over two years after it ended? What could they have been thinking? What did they feel—scared? Joyful? Uncertain?
One year later, on June 19th, 1866, the very first Juneteenth celebration took place. There were parties, cookouts, speeches, and calls to action.
Fast forward to June 17, 2021—President Joe Biden signed legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday.
But now, 160 years after that first celebration, we find ourselves in a strange and painful paradox. While we honor the resilience and freedom of Black Americans, there’s a full-on assault on Black history, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
At the federal, state, and local levels, there are active attempts to ban books, rewrite history—or erase it altogether.
On March 27, 2025—President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” This order aims to remove so-called “anti-American ideology” and “divisive narratives” from institutions like the Smithsonian, national zoos, and other cultural and educational spaces.
This isn’t just about “truth” or “sanity”—it’s about whitewashing real history. It’s an effort to silence diverse voices, to downplay the brutality of slavery and segregation, and to sanitize a past that was anything but clean.
As recently as May 23rd, the Trump Administration pulled federal funding from Boston’s African American History Museum. Yes, that Boston—home to Harvard University, which has also been in the headlines for refusing to bow to political pressure.
But we’ve been here before. And we’re still standing.
The late poet, author, and activist Maya Angelou once wrote:
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
We rise. We survive. Just like our ancestors did.
Through slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and now—through attempts to silence our stories—we are still here. You are here.
As we celebrate Juneteenth 2025, let us remember the words of civil rights icon Ella Baker:
“We who believe in freedom cannot rest.”
Let us rest tomorrow—
Because today, the fight continues.
