Happy Juneteenth, friends! Last week, Congress passed legislation to designate Juneteenth a federal holiday, so I’d like to take a moment to explain the importance of recognizing this day.

156 years ago today, the last enslaved people in the United States were freed – two months after the end of the Civil War.

By then, it had been two years since the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. But it wasn’t until the Union Army marched into Galveston, Texas that the enslaved people living there were finally freed.

Juneteenth is a day of hope and promise for Black Americans, but it’s also a reminder of all the work we have left to do to ensure racial equality in the United States.

Black Americans continue to be imprisoned, sentenced to death, and murdered or brutalized by the police at disproportionately high rates.

And Black Americans were uniquely impacted by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. In New York City, for example, minority and women owned businesses, including Black-owned businesses, were significantly less likely to receive emergency funding from the city government to help them weather the pandemic. This is on top of the fact that the wage gap impacts Black women more than any other group.

We clearly have a lot of work to do, both on the federal level and right here in New York, if we seek to dismantle systemic racism.

Today, I am thinking of all the brave individuals who fought to abolish slavery, who organized to pass civil rights legislation, and of all those who, to this day, resist racist voter suppression laws, zoning regulations, and drug policy. On my end, I promise to continue my work championing legislation that will uplift Black New Yorkers.

Thank you for reading,

Alessandra

Paid For By The Committee To Elect Alessandra Biaggi

This email was sent to [email protected]. Email is a very important way we communicate with supporters like you, but if you want to, you can unsubscribe here.