John, Happy Juneteenth! This weekend, I was honored to join together with the Western Pennsylvania community to celebrate freedom. ✊🏿
Today we recognize Juneteenth, which was declared a federal holiday by President Biden in 2021 after organizers, activists, and agitators took to the streets in 2020 demanding recognition that Black Lives Matter and Black history is American history.
Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved men and women in Galveston, Texas, were told of their freedom after the Civil War — two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Juneteenth is a day to celebrate Black joy and honor the fight for freedom led by our ancestors. For centuries, we have resisted and struggled for liberation, and today this fight continues.
Even over 150 years after emancipation, we continue to fight together against the injustices Black folks experience today from the prison industrial complex and police violence to environmental racism, racial health disparities, and voter suppression.
But in the face of systemic racism, white supremacists are attempting to ban Black history at all levels of education and erase the U.S. history of slavery from curriculums. They are banning books in public schools and spreading fear around critical race theory.
As a student, I learned about Black resistance, resilience, and ingenuity. But even that is not enough. We MUST decolonize and de-eurocentralize our curriculums.
The future of our country depends on our ability to finally reconcile with our nation's history of racism and white nationalism. As Pennsylvania's first Black Congresswoman, I was proud to co-sponsor Rep. Jamaal Bowman's African American History Act to do just that.
I'm fighting for a bold, progressive agenda that prioritizes the policies Black communities deserve and furthers our work to end white supremacy. If you're with me, please consider making a donation of any amount today to directly help grow our movement for racial justice and equity.
Let us march on, til victory is won.
— Summer
