June 19th, 1865. The day the news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached the enslaved Black citizens of Galveston, Texas — two years after it was signed by President Lincoln.

Today, we remember it as Juneteenth. A day to remember our ancestors who faced injustices beyond belief, and still had the will to fight for a future they’d never get to see. 

They believed that one day, their children would live in a better America. That belief came true for my great-grandmother, Maebell James.

Maebell was born in the deep South just 31 years after that first Juneteenth. When our family was forced to flee Jim Crow South Carolina in the 1950s, she built a safer life for her children and grandchildren here in Maryland.

Nobody was prouder than my great-grandmother when I started law school. And to know I’m now a U.S. Senator…she’d be blown away. 

No matter what challenges lay in our path (and there are many), I know America’s brightest days are ahead. 

Because we want to give our kids and their kids a better life, just like our ancestors did for us.   

Because good people like you are on the side of justice and freedom. 

Thank you for staying in this fight with me.

Onward,

Angela Alsobrooks