At its monthly meeting in July, ACC’s Executive Committee approved adding Juneteenth to the list of ACC’s approved staff holidays. This follows a similar move by the US government in 2021 to recognize June 19 as a federal holiday in celebration of the end of slavery. June 19 is the date in 1865 when, it is said, slaves in Galveston Texas were the last people in the US to learn that they had been legally freed.
Originally celebrated only in Texas, Juneteenth has been expanded to celebrate the end of slavery and to acknowledge both that the struggle for racial equality continues and that this country was, in large part, built on the backs of enslaved people.
Gaps remain in our legal system and in our society’s view of black and brown people as equal. As a person with white skin born into a society dominated by white people, I naturally have biases that I am actively working to undo. This is the work of the people of God’s kingdom, in which “is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Jesus Christ (RSV).”
ACC invites congregations to recognize Juneteenth and to join in the work of actively dismantling racism in our communities and in ourselves as individuals.
To learn more about Juneteenth, visit check out the links below:
Juneteenth: A history
Wilma A. Baily, Ph.D.
Blog post from Menno Snapshots, June 16, 2023
Juneteenth acknowledges freedom delayed
Ben Tapper
Blog post from Mennonite Mission Network, June 15, 2022
What is Juneteenth?
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Article on pbs.org