John, this Juneteenth, I'm thinking about how far our fight for true freedom and equality for African Americans has come – and how far we still have to go.

Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around how much progress we've made in just a couple of generations. 

My great-grandmother was born during slavery in Galveston, Texas. And my mother, who grew up unable to drink from the same water fountain as her white peers, experienced the consequences of segregation and Jim Crow. When she went into labor with me, the hospital refused her admission, and we both nearly died as a result. The scar I bore from my emergency forceps delivery was just one of the many that segregation and the legacy of slavery left on our family. 

But still, my mother fought to leave this world better than when she entered it. And it's thanks to brave people like her that the needle for progress has moved forward.

In my lifetime, I've gone from working with the NAACP to integrate my high school cheerleading team and become the first Black cheerleader at San Fernando High, to becoming the highest-ranking appointed African American woman in Congress – but our fight for progress is still nowhere near complete.

Because equality, equity and safety are still not guaranteed for African Americans and other people of color.

As long as MAGA extremists continue to mount attacks on our right to vote and women’s right to bodily autonomy, as long as criminal justice reforms like the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act are stalled in the Senate, and as long as politicians in the gun lobby’s pocket vote down commonsense gun safety reform, African Americans, our children, and our families will continue to be in harm's way.

It's far past time that we have more Black voices in the Senate, and that's exactly why I'm running.

So today, we celebrate how far we've come in our fight for racial justice and equality – and tomorrow we continue our fight.

Thank you for taking a moment to reflect on Juneteenth with me. 

Onward,

Barbara Lee