On Juneteenth

 This is a post I put on Facebook today, June 19, 2025. It's short for a blog post, but I think it's important enough to post nonetheless.

Juneteenth is almost over for this year as I write, but it is still worth commenting on. Black Americans have celebrated it for a long time, but it became a federal holiday only recently. It is a day to celebrate and thank God for the liberation of millions of Americans from chattel slavery. Slavery was by no means the only one, but it was by far the most brutal, unjust, and sinful manifestation of America's original sin of racism. Juneteenth reminds us that it took a civil war to end slavery. Donald Trump, who is minimizing Juneteenth as much as he can, reminds us that we still have a long way to go to overcome racism. Today let us acknowledge the progress we've made in improving race relations in this country, but, more importantly, let us recognize how much work we still have to do. Then let's keep doing it, perhaps in part by making sure that the racist Donald Trump never succeeds in his effort to turn this country fascist and turn the clock to the bad old days after northern Democrats abandoned the South to southern racists and the US Supreme Court tragically and wrongly said that "separate but equal" does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.