Juneteenth marks the arrival of US army troops in Galveston, TX, on June 19, 1865. The troops told some of the last enslaved Americans that they were free. They helped to continue the Emancipation Proclamation, in which President Abraham Lincoln decreed some enslaved people to be free on Jan 1, 1863.
Though setting Black people free may not have been done out of kindness and compassion, but more out of powernomics, freedom occurred. Juneteenth is a day of celebrating freedom.
The desire to be free to suppress, oppress, or control others, to withhold information in order to manipulate for the purposes just mentioned, to take your frustrations out on those you can get away with doing so…these desires are not worthy of being described as ‘freedom,’ for they are poisons.
The desires to just live and be, to live healthily, to shine your light wherever you go, to live further into your potential every day in such a way that instills more harmony, joy and peace, to collaborate and elevate all, now that is freedom.
Happy Juneteenth.