Professor Kate Masur, of the Department of History, wrote about the history of slavery and Juneteenth in a guest essay for The New York Times Opinion section.
Masur said that in order to truly commemorate Juneteenth, Americans need to recognize that the struggle for Black liberation began long before the Civil War. She explained that even northern states subjected Black people to discriminatory regulations, and the original Constitution did not offer a path toward abolition or racial equality.
She also wrote that though there are no longer laws that explicitly discriminate based on race, more covert forms of oppression still remain.
“Juneteenth, then, should serve not only to remind us of the joy and relief that accompanied the end of slavery, but also of the unfinished work of confronting slavery’s legacy,” Masur wrote.
Ultimately, Masur said that it was not the federal government who worked to eliminate the racist legacies of slavery, but Black people and their white allies.
Read the full essay here.