Dear Progressive Reader,

Monday was the Juneteenth holiday. Juneteenth, which first occurred in 1865, did not become a federal holiday until very recently. Sadly, many states do not yet recognize or observe the holiday. At the signing ceremony on June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden referred to the holiday as, “A day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take—what I’ve long called ‘America’s original sin.’ ”

This year on Juneteenth, Alaysia Hackett of the U.S. Department of Labor wrote on our website, “We honor Juneteenth as a day to celebrate the freedom and dignity of Black Americans who were enslaved for generations. It is also a day to acknowledge the ongoing struggle for racial justice and equality in our nation.” In December, 1962, for the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, The Progressive produced a special issue of the magazine. It include writing from John Hope Franklin, A. Phillip Randolph, Lillian Smith, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, and many more. It also included a letter from President John F. Kennedy who said, “I am sure . . . that The Progressive will remind us that the task is not complete—that no American can cease striving until every American, whatever his creed or color, enjoys the rights assigned to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence.” You can be assured that that is indeed what we did in that issue, and what we have continued to do in the pages of our magazine (and now on our website as well) in the sixty years that have followed.

This week on our website, we continue to roll out articles from our latest print edition, the Pride Month issue. Plus, Jeff Abbott reports from Guatemala on issues surrounding this weekend’s presidential election; David H. Price looks at the 1950s writing of Kurt Vonnegut and how he cautioned us about today’s artificial intelligence merged with capitalism; Edward Hunt examines the long history of selling short the people of the Marshall Islands; and Safa Ahmed pens on op-ed on the dangers of U.S. President Joe Biden becoming pals with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Also, cartoonist Mark Fiore skewers Congressmember Jim Jordan; Michelle Alejandra Silva cautions about another attack on DACA recipients; and Jeff Bryant, lead fellow of our Public Schools Advocate project gives his report card on the value of community schools.

In less than a month, Bryant and others will hold a workshop on “the politics of school choice” at the annual NetrootsNation conference. Billed as one of the largest national gatherings of grassroots activists, progressive politicians, and independent media makers, this year’s events will take place July 13-15 in Chicago, Illinois. I hope you can join us there!

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - The new 2023 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now on sale for half price!. You can still order one online.

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