I attended Mechanicsville Elementary, Westminster West Middle, and Westminster High School. I studied hard and learned the critical thinking skills necessary to compete with the best talent in our nation. Not bad for a small town country boy from Carroll County.

While I am grateful for my public school education, there were gaps. For instance, I never learned in our history classes that on June 19, 1865, the Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and free the last enslaved Americans in Texas from bondage. This long weekend we celebrate Juneteenth for only the second time as a federal holiday.

At the first federally celebrated Juneteenth ceremony, President Biden observed that this holiday reflects what Psalm 30:5 tells us: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slavery and subjugation, and a promise of a brighter morning to come. We, in Maryland’s First District, are blessed with a rich history which reflects both the struggles of slavery and the promise of a better America.

This mural in Cambridge captures the strength and courage of Dorchester’s very own Harriet Tubman.

A few miles away in Easton, the Hill Community stands as one of the oldest free African American neighborhoods in the United States still in existence today.

Last summer at the Hill Community, the Frederick Douglass family unveiled this family mural to celebrate the family’s history from bondage to Tarence Bailey’s service in Afghanistan.

Juneteenth is a day for all of us to celebrate our extraordinary history, culture, and heritage.

Dave