Juneteenth Was Never the Finish Line

Juneteenth Was Never the Finish Line: Why Reparations Can’t Wait

Inheritance of Silence. That is what we have been handed. A holiday without healing. A celebration without compensation. A national nod to freedom, while the chains of economic exclusion remain unbroken.

 

Juneteenth, now a federal holiday, commemorates the day in 1865 when the last enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, were told they were free—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. But freedom delayed is freedom denied. And freedom without repair is not freedom at all.

 

Today, we must ask: What holiday if the harm remains unpaid.

 

The Illusion of Progress: A Holiday Without Justice

Juneteenth has been embraced by corporations, politicians, and institutions eager to signal racial awareness. But symbolism is not substance. While we wave flags and host festivals, the material conditions of Black American Descendants of Slavery continue to deteriorate.

 

 This Juneteenth Black household wealth will fall to zero by 2053 if current trends continue. Black homeownership is lower today than it was in 1968, the year the Fair Housing Act passed. Black Americans hold just 1.6% of Fortune 500 CEO positions, despite being 13% of the population. Black Americans own less than ½ of 1% of all wealth in American.

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This Juneteenth Black maternal mortality is three times higher than that of white women. This is not a coincidence. It is the result of centuries of exclusion, theft, and broken promises. And now, the very programs that offer a lifeline are being gutted.

 

Where the Money Goes: The Federal Budget Tells the Truth

When Congress tells us there’s “No money” for reparations, we must ask: No money for whom?

 

The U.S. spends over $877 billion annually on defense, more than the next ten countries combined. The current administration has proposed $880 billion in cuts over the next decade, targeting Medicaid, SNAP, housing, and civil rights protections.

 

 Meanwhile, tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations are being extended, costing trillions over the next decade.

 

This Juneteenth we have money for war. We have money to fund foreign armed services. We have money for billionaires. We have money for the least in need of communities, industries, and institutions here in America.

 

But do we not have money for the people whose stolen labor built this country?

 

That is not a budget. To be clear, that is the ongoing betrayal and crimes against humanity that have been ragging for centuries unabated.

 

 The Cuts That Will Collapse Us

The proposed budget cuts are not abstract. They are lethal. They will slash Medicaid, leaving thirteen million Americans, many of them Black, without health insurance.

 

It will defund housing programs threatening eviction for tens of thousands of Black families. It will eliminate community violence intervention grants, even as gun violence rises in Black neighborhoods.

 

It will cut school meal programs, increasing child hunger in Black communities already three times more likely to face food insecurity.

 

These cuts will lead to exploding homelessness in Black communities. Rising poverty crimes in already left behind and politically neglected communities, as desperation grows.

 

It will accelerate already plummeting property values, further eroding Black wealth. It will increase violence, as social safety nets are shredded. This is not austerity. This is the type of annihilation that leads to the creation of a “Useless Class.”

 

 Unserious Leadership in a Serious Time

This Juneteenth we are facing a generational crisis. Yet too many Black elected officials are unprepared, uninformed, uncommitted, or unwilling to confront it head on.

 

 Instead, they are constantly focusing on political survival and politically convenient issues far removed from the issues most impacting the most in need constituents that they represent.

 

Where are the policy proposals to counter these cuts? Where is the federal advocacy to demand targeted investment? Where is the year-round funding to sustain Black led community organizations, advocacy groups, institutions, or local governments?

 

Where is the mobilization to protect our communities from economic collapse?

 

Instead, we see performative politics, photo ops, and complete silence. But silence is complicity. And symbolism is not strategy. Especially when it comes to turning a blind eye on the systemic and intentional genocide taking place here in America.

 

We need Black leaders who understand budgets, legislation, governance, and power, not just branding. We need leaders who can intelligently connect the dots between defense spending, tax policy, and the denial of reparations.

 

Plantation States and the Problem of Pass-Through Funding

When federal funds are passed to states without strict mandates, Black communities lose. Especially in the South—what some call “plantation states”—where state governments have a long history of diverting funds away from Black communities.

 

 During the COVID-19 pandemic, Southern states underfunded Black communities despite receiving billions in federal aid. The same can said for Progressive led cities where funds were horribly mismanaged, bypassed the most in need Black communities, and mostly ended up in the hands of the Least in need.

 

Without federal mandates, states will continue to direct funds to the least in need, bypassing the very communities harmed by systemic racism.

 

We need new leadership that will deliver federal policies that names us, funds us, and protects us. Reparations cannot be left to the discretion of states that once enslaved us.

 

This Juneteenth, Reparations are The Only Path Forward

Reparations are not charity. They are a debt. A legal and moral obligation. HR 40, the bill to study reparations, has been introduced every year since 1989. It still has not passed. The reintroduction of bills is no longer enough.

 

The U.S. paid reparations to Japanese Americans interned during WWII. It paid reparations to slaveholders across the south after emancipation. It continues to pay holocaust survivors and other forms of reparations daily. But not to those who they enslaved.

 

This Juneteenth we must not only honor the sacrifice made by those before but demand direct, taxpayer funded payments to Black American Descendants of Slavery via redistribution of funds in the federal budget.

 

This Juneteenth we must demand targeted investment in black owned and controlled housing, education structures, healthcare systems, job creation and industries of the future.

 

This Juneteenth we must demand federal mandates that bypass state sabotage. A national commission with binding authority, not just another study on reparations. Leadership that can build allies and garner support from colleges who are resistant.

 

 Juneteenth Is Not Enough

Juneteenth is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a demand. An owed debt. An obligation from the U.S. government.

 

We cannot celebrate freedom while living in economic chains. We cannot honor emancipation while enduring erasure. We cannot accept a holiday in place of justice. The inheritance of Silence must end.

 

This Juneteenth we demand more than a day off. We demand a down payment on justice, a level playing field, and economic independence. Please stand with and support this organization as we work to collaborate with all in the fight for ADOS justice.