Celebrating Juneteenth AND Fighting the System All Year Long — Embracing Equity
By: Embracing Equity
Tags: Blm, St Louis, BlackLivesMatter, Juneteenth, Anti Racism

Celebrating Juneteenth AND Fighting the System All Year Long — Embracing Equity Embracing Equity Jun 17·7 min read

By Dr. Nicole Evans

Embracing Equity’s Director of Partnerships and Leadership Coaching

10 min read

When I first joined Embracing Equity and reviewed the employee handbook, I read through the paid holidays. I paused when I saw Juneteenth as a recognized, paid company holiday. Was this true? Was I reading the handbook correctly?

Juneteenth is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. Originating in Galveston, Texas, it is now celebrated annually on June 19th throughout the United States, with increasing official recognition.

Recently, many companies and some states are beginning to recognize this holiday. Some companies, although not closing for the day, are allowing their employees to take the day off to celebrate, reflect, and honor.

Should we celebrate this day and how?

To answer this question for myself, I went to my elders. I called my 93-year old grandmother, Mama Grace, and her 103 year old cousin, Cousin Robbie, to ask these strong women about the day and the celebration itself. Did we still need it? Should it be celebratory or somber? Should it be a national holiday? What were their thoughts about it?

My grandmother answered almost without hesitation: Absolutely! She recalled her parents working on the Danner Plantation in Arkansas. My great-grandparents were not enslaved, yet contemporary behavior, historical legacy of de jure segregation, and Jim Crow laws created de facto segregation for them. This left few choices for how to support a family. She remembered that they talked about their time on the plantation as painful, yet the end of a system that crushed the very bodies and souls of our ancestors NEEDS and DESERVES to be celebrated. It is in our celebration where we remember what our ancestors went through for us. Mama Grace shared that she had little hopes of Juneteenth becoming a national holiday anytime soon.

My grandmother’s cousin had thoughts about this day as well. Cousin Robbie, born in 1918, recalls that her grandmother was enslaved and that she did not talk about being enslaved. Being enslaved had left her grandmother numb. Cousin Robbie’s grandmother had been torn from her family and avoided the conversation, so that they did not have to deal with the remnants or thoughts of slavery. Cousin Robbie believes that we MUST celebrate Juneteenth to keep Black issues in the forefront. We MUST joyfully celebrate the resilience of our people, lest we forget.

Embracing Equity is living into its true mission. As a full time team member, I truly felt seen, welcomed, and recognized as a Black woman. So with the support of Embracing Equity and with the guidance of my elders, I celebrate Juneteenth with my family here in St. Louis. Today, we will have a celebration with traditional food and red drinks. On Saturday, we will participate in “Juneteenth on Their Shoulders”, to celebrate those who came before us. We will march, dressed in African attire, on the grounds of the Old Courthouse, where Black people were sold at slave auctions and where the infamous Dred Scott Case was tried. Additionally, we will visit the Missouri History Museum with my granddaughter to learn more about Juneteenth.

Fighting the System

Celebrating Juneteenth is important. This week, President Biden signed the bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Nearly every state already recognizes Juneteenth as a holiday, but it will now become the first federal holiday created since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in 1983. We count this as a win, this was a huge step, even though we know that there is often a neoliberal response of just counting this as a day off and not thinking deeper to move to systemic change. We see this in the current fight against critical race theory and other teachings of racism in schools. We must push for systemic change. It is critical to fight the system that allowed slavery to exist and that hinders Black folx from thriving even today.