Celebrating Juneteenth

(Children’s Defense Fund) – The White House hosted an early Juneteenth concert on June 10 this year, and when President Biden spoke at the celebration, he said that when the Biden-Harris administration made Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021 “it wasn’t just a symbolic gesture. It was a statement of fact. It was a statement of faith. It was a testament to the resilience of generations of Black Americans who kept their eyes set on the nation’s North Star. That North Star was the idea that we’re all created equal in the image of God and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. While we’ve never lived up to it, we’ve never fully walked away from it either. That’s because of you and generations before you who led the march from slavery to freedom toward a more perfect union.” Related Stories As always, we’re called to stay on that march. This year, Juneteenth celebrations coincide with the 60th anniversary of the start of the Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Summer. On June 14, 1964, hundreds of volunteers – many of them northern White college students – gathered at the Western College for Women (now part of Miami University) in Oxford,...