Not Yet Free: Reckoning with Juneteenth’s Legacy and Today’s Reality
What Juneteenth teaches us about resilience, rage, and reclaiming our power.
I long for the day I wake up to silence.
Silence in my brain. No chaos in my mind to compete with the morning birdsong. No instant fight or flight mode. One day, my heart will not race with dread and fear, but rather peace and hope for the day ahead.
One day.
But, right now, I must intentionally curate those peaceful moments I long for. I must force my brain to shut off after I spend a few moments coming back to reality amid my early morning panic. Naturally, my brain reaches for my phone to shut off the noise with a hit of dopamine. Not the greatest decision as the morning’s headlines add to the endless loop of anxiety in my head.
My mind instantly jumps from analyzing the news headlines to figuring out how much time I have before my Pilates class. I leap out of bed with frustration that I slept 20 minutes later than I was supposed to, which is another perfect addition to my anxiety if I do say so myself. I scurry to throw on my workout clothes and rush downstairs.
“Take deep breaths. Ignore the news,” I repeat to myself as I place my Pilates equipment on my living room floor.
“Do. Not. Scroll,” I continue aloud. “Do. Not. Scroll.”
Anyway, I scroll.
I can’t help myself. The headlines reel me in, deepening the numbness I’ve been carrying for months. I try to shake it out of my system as I move through cat cow, downward dog, and excruciating leg circles. Pilates forces my mind away from the world’s chaos and back into my body.
After Pilates, I wake up my kids, whose joy has become my oxygen in this dark, tumultuous world. Their laughter is my medicine. But even their joy carries its chaos, which leaves me reaching for my next dose of peace: my espresso ritual. I inhale the rich aroma of espresso and close my eyes, letting my daughters’ infectious giggles course through me.
Exhale.
I try to hold on to this moment, but, it’s fleeting. The headlines can no longer be ignored. Another political crisis. Another tyrannical move. Another bombing. More lost lives. More attacks on human, civil, reproductive, and LGBTQ rights. More book bans. Another mass shooting. More families torn apart. Another attempt to erase the truth. It all floods back in, stealing every bit of peace I worked so hard to establish.
I feel guilt for my inability to jump on social media and add thoughtful, poetic, and analytical reactions to what we’re living through, but words have evaded me recently. I don’t have a profound way to describe the deep rage we are collectively feeling, especially since my personal feelings of rage and numbness seem to be fighting one another.
My numbness tells my rage, “You have no business being angry. This nation has never been the nation of freedom it boasts to be, especially for you. This nation has always upheld white supremacy. This just happens to be the most extreme, violent upholding in modern times.”
My rage replies, “Yes, but just a few years ago, I had hope that everything was finally changing. It felt like people were waking up. It seemed like our nation was finally ready to uproot its oppressive founding.”
The Day Hope Felt Real
I remember the elation I felt when Juneteenth was finally declared a federal holiday. I had my reservations, of course. This was a holiday commemorating a day that most white Americans ignored. With the amount of backlash Black History Month receives every year, I knew Juneteenth would come with its own set of challenges. But, something still felt different this time. Finally, federal recognition of the plight, resilience, and deserved liberation of Black Americans. Finally, our jubilee would no longer be an afterthought. These were baby steps toward the fight for collective liberation, but they were steps.
I try not to regret allowing my spirit to feel optimistic only to have it shatter a few years later. I try to remind myself that my ancestors clung to hope during incremental moments of progress, too. Those moments were integral to their survival. They wept tears of joy when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed 1863 and finally danced to their jubilee on June 19th, 1865. They marched hand-in-hand and endured more violence than we’ll ever imagine, demanding their freedom from Jim Crow in the 1960s. And these are just the major moments that we know about. There are infinite unrecorded moments we’ll never know about—moments that paved way for our very existence. Moments of resistance, refusal, retaliation, escape, and love—each providing miraculous glimmers of hope and fuel for survival.
They endured so that our physical chains would be forever removed. They sung songs of hope so that we may dance to our own liberation. And they clung to their hope, even when the next moment brought more violence and death in response to their progress and unyielding faith.
I often wonder what they would think if they saw us today. Or, should I say, I wonder what they do think as they watch over us from above? What do they think when they see that our physical chains have merely been replaced with spiritual, institutional, and mental ones? What do they think about that hope they clung to as they witness today’s despair and erosion of progress?
Delayed Liberation, Then and Now
Today is Juneteenth. But, this year, I’m struggling to feel the joy that usually reverberates my spirit on this day. I don’t know how to cling to that same mustard seed faith filled hope that my ancestors clung to. Today, I’m just angry. Angry at a nation for never becoming what it promised it would be. Angry at the idolization and worship of white supremacy that continues to poison our society. Angry at myself—for believing I had the power to have a hand in upending white supremacy, for daring to write a book that I once believed would shift culture. I can’t believe I ever thought we had a real shot at uprooting this nation from its inhumane foundation.
Instead of celebrating, I’m grieving what I once believed was possible. I’m grieving for the world my children are inheriting—a world that I thought just a few years ago would be on its way toward collective liberation once my children reached adulthood.
I glance toward my children and catch their gleeful smiles. Their eyes are never without wonder. I feel guilty for the moments I don’t have the capacity for their wonder—the moments my anxiety and exhaustion result in impatience and irritability. They don’t deserve any of this—my exhaustion or the world’s brutality. No child does.
My daughters love Juneteenth, so I’m trying to shake my devastation and give them the meaningful celebration they deserve. Just as our ancestors deserved to celebrate their jubilee, regardless of the wrath they would be met with the next day. I utilize the same mindset that I use every morning as I curate my intentional moments of peace with my Pilates class and espresso ritual—a mindset that not only ensures my survival but prioritizes my human need for joy even when it feels irrelevant or selfish. I remind myself that rest, joy, and celebration are resistance when living in a world designed to destroy you. I remind myself that joy is not the absence of anger, but a declaration in the face of it—that the two ignite each other.
What Was Withheld Then Is Withheld Now
I’m not turning this into a history lesson, but it’s worth briefly remembering the significance of Juneteenth. It marks the delayed emancipation of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas—two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. That delay wasn’t accidental; it was a deliberate act to withhold freedom through Confederate control. On June 19, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived with 1,500 federal troops and announced that slavery in Texas was officially abolished.
Just as liberation was intentionally withheld in 1865, it’s being withheld today. These are not coincidental times—and they’re not unprecedented either. Let’s reserve that term for the COVID pandemic. What we’re living through has been deliberately designed, more than we may fully grasp right now. We have to stop acting surprised by where we are. We must refuse to fall for the propaganda that insists this country was ever truly free, unified, democratic, or just.
You can’t expect a planted seed to bear fruit different from what was sown. Unless you uproot the roots and start anew, you’ll keep harvesting the same result. You can try different gardening tactics, but the fruit will be the fruit. Our nation is the fruit of white supremacy—a seed planted when colonization first touched this soil. That seed has multiplied into roots that run deeper than we can imagine, tended to for over 400 years. We’ve never uprooted the foundation. So, the fruit remains the same. We’ve tried to destroy the garden. We’ve pulled a few weeds. We’ve even poisoned the soil. But the roots? They’re still there. And they’ll keep thriving—because those who want white supremacy to live will always find a way to nurse it back to health, stronger and more vengeful than before.
What we are witnessing right now is ten-fold retaliation and the continued withholding of liberation. Nothing has changed since 1865. It just continues to evolve for modern times.
Our Chains Have Changed, Not Disappeared
We may not have physical chains around our ankles, but we continue to be spiritually, structurally, and mentally enslaved in our society. We are enslaved to witnessing oppressive injustice and violence almost every day, specifically continued violence toward Black and brown communities, on a national and global scale. We are experiencing similar feelings of hopelessness that I believe our ancestors also reckoned with as they asked themselves if anything would ever change.
Yes, many of our ancestors clung to those monumental, micro-moments of hope when a bit of progress was finally within reach. However, I think most of our ancestors felt that freedom would never be theirs to hold and that nothing would ever change how they were viewed by white people. They were forced to endure the utmost violence and abuse as they wondered if their silent tears would ever be cared for, their silent prayers ever answered. Many never lived to see those prayers answered. Many died without anyone to catch those tears. Many spent their entire lives wondering if their hope was futile and died with only the confirmation that, maybe, it was.
We are enslaved to that same despondency, wondering if things will ever change as we witness modern day violence from genocide to mass deportation to travel bans that target our places of origin. We are enslaved to a system that is run by white supremacist, power hoarders who let us know every single day that we are powerless against their schemes. We are enslaved to the crisis that our nervous system is under as we attempt to survive this trauma that we have slowly normalized as just…life in America.
And we’re supposed to celebrate freedom today?
Our Liberation Starts With Us
I know. This hasn’t been an essay filled with much positivity or anything revolutionary. If I’m being honest, I think I’ve lost a great deal of my ability to provide the perfect analytical, yet hopeful response to every event in our society that links to white supremacy. I know that’s what many expect from me, but I just don’t have it in me anymore. My nervous system is fried and much of my hope has been shattered. My rage is so omnipresent, I’ve basically shut down. I don’t want to continue talking about the doom and gloom we are already aware of.
All I want to do is find a way to reclaim my wholeness in this world that exists to shatter us—and I want to help you do the same. All I want to do is resist every single demand this society makes in the name of white supremacy—every demand that exists to dismantle my intrinsic worth. And I want to help you do the same. All I want to do is live every single day in the fullness of Black joy without a shred of guilt as I declare to this nation that its oppression and hatred will no longer have a hold on me. And I want to help you do the same.
I want to resist every standard that white supremacy has tried to enforce—proudly proclaiming that, from here on out, I am the standard. And I want you to do the same.
From now on, I want to boldly grab hold of the liberation this society has withheld from us for far too long. I want to take what rightfully belongs to me and I want you to take what rightfully belongs to you.
I won't sit here and pretend I have a shred of hope for a future in this country that is liberated for every single marginalized body, but I can say that I will do whatever it takes to help each of us reclaim liberation for ourselves and our communities. I do believe we have the power to resist the oppression this nation continues to bestow upon us. Just as our ancestors took matters into their own hands by giving themselves educations, building their own prosperous neighborhoods and businesses, and redefining what it looks like to thrive despite living with the foot of white supremacy on their necks.
We will rewrite the rules to fit our narrative. We will continue to let our infectious joy, beautiful culture, radical success, and unwavering faith tell our story. We will resist every demand of perfectionism, hustle, urgency, individualism, and respectability. We will exist with powerful softness, gentle strength, and unshakable confidence.
We will not let tyranny, white supremacy, or systemic power break us. Yes, it may appear to have more power and control over us. But, we have even more power in our resistance. We always have. We don’t need to wait for freedom. We don’t need to demand our freedom from those who will always find ways to withhold or delay it while giving us false glimpses of it. We can take it. We can reclaim it. And we will.