“Juneteenth is a way to Lead Broader Society to Freedom” – Rev. Mariama White-Hammond (’17)
The following is an excerpt of an article from Inside Climate News, “Juneteenth and Its Role in Environmental Justice—for All,” an Interview by Steve Curwood, ‘Living on Earth’ on
The federal holiday Juneteenth celebrates the enforcement of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in Texas in June 1865. By December, all of the 4 million or so persons of African descent who were enslaved at the beginning of the Civil War were finally freed by a constitutional amendment. 
But freedom did not bring full equality, and discrimination led to housing and employment patterns that today still disadvantage Black people in terms of economic and environmental security.
“I think the spirit of Juneteenth is the reality that, as we say in the church, this joy that I have, the world didn’t give it, and the world can’t take it away. The federal government did not give us the resilience we have, and it cannot take it away.”
Just as the enslavement of people was driven by commercial interests, today the enslavement of nature for profit violates a morality that sees value in all living things, according to the Rev. Mariama White-Hammond.