BOSTON, MA - JUNE 10: Daisy Opanga, left, and Natasha Mays dance together during a Coalition of Black Youth march from Nubian Square to Boston City Hall on June 10, 2020, held to urge Boston City Council to reallocate Boston police funding to youth jobs programs like SuccessLink, violence prevention, and to hire additional mental health counselors in Boston Public Schools. (Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
It is a momentous time in history for our nation and for countries around the world. The demand for change—to end racial injustice wherever it may be found—is loud and clear. The resounding outcry from the masses tells us that covering our eyes and ears to the pervasive unequal treatment and dehumanization of Black people is no longer acceptable, and neither are the days of accepting changes that meet the bare minimum. It is serendipitous that the weeks-long worldwide protests now arrive at Juneteenth, the celebrated date when Black people in Galveston, Texas, were notified—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation—that slavery had ended. This crucial event has long been overlooked by our nation, so, in
honor of Juneteenth, two Black researchers at the Urban Institute share personal reflections on what this day means to them, in the midst of today’s unprecedented, global call for racial justice.
As a young Black woman, working amidst the current turmoil of a public health emergency and burgeoning racial justice uprising is exhausting. Although the threat of COVID-19 still looms, an equally pervasive and lethal killer continues to rear its head—racial injustice. I have found myself in the past few weeks oscillating between hyperawareness—of unjust killings of Black people, protests, legal actions—and turning it all off in the name of self-preservation. Simultaneously, many of my colleagues and others across the country are reckoning, yet again or perhaps for the first time, with the structural inequities baked into the very core of our country.
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Now is the time to pass new laws protecting the health and safety of communities of color, and to develop policies that dramatically promote their flourishing. The Urban Institute was founded in a time of unrest to be a place that provided the needed evidence to support necessary and dramatic policy change. In this new moment, our original charge is just as urgent and just as necessary. I hope this small break to acknowledge Juneteenth not only allows us space to celebrate how far we have come but also helps us keep in focus that sense of history, vision, and vigilance needed to push for the policies that lead us closer towards liberty, justice, and opportunity for all—marching on until victory is won.
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