On Friday, New Jersey celebrates Juneteenth — also known as Freedom Day — to mark June 19, 1865, when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas finally learned about their emancipation. Juneteenth was first recognized as a federal and New Jersey state holiday last year.
In its second year, social justice organizations used Juneteenth as a call to arms for reforms in such things as criminal justice and education — and for reparations for people whose ancestors were enslaved.
Speaking at a Juneteenth rally in Newark on Friday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said, “This is our idea that we have for Juneteenth — not to be a day off, but a day on; not to be a day where we stay home, where we stand up; not to be a day that we’re silent watching TV, but that we are making some modern-day news. We still have a long way to go until justice rolls down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
On the issue of reparations, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said, “We want reparations because of Jim Crow. We want reparations because of denial of housing. We want reparations because denying of jobs. We want reparations because we hung from trees. We want reparations for Emmett Till. We want reparations because our life in this country has been made miserable by a system that is designed to undermine and steal the wealth and worth from our bodies.”
