By Roscoe Triply & Tobe Ogun
We extend warm wishes to everyone on this Juneteenth. Juneteenth celebrates the freedom of enslaved people in the United States of America. This freedom was the result of centuries of slave rebellions that eventually led to the American Civil War, which divided the nation into free and slaveholding states. The free states won this war against the slaveholding Confederate States of America.
Although this holiday has recently gained popularity, the celebration dates back to its original ceremony in Texas (the last Confederate State to stop fighting) in the aftermath of the Civil War on June 19, 1865. This was just a few weeks after the war ended on May 26, 1865.
The recent national recognition of Juneteenth was used to shut down the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement that was protesting against police brutality and injustice. Liberal opportunists robbed the moment of its revolutionary character and used it to line their pockets and get comfortable at the expense of working people.
George Floyd’s tragic murder, captured on camera, sparked a global movement for justice. The widespread protests demonstrated international solidarity under the banner of “Black Lives Matter.” Recognizing the cry for change, Washington, D.C. responded to demands for defunding the police & an end to their bloody, racist terrorism with nothing more than a single day off.
Abraham Lincoln’s post-Civil War Emancipation Proclamation ended chattel slavery, but it did not end slavery for criminals. Today, the American prison system disproportionately enslaves Black American people. Things have not gotten better, but worse when it comes to Black people affected by US bondage including mass incarceration, police murders & probation as well as imperialism & neocolonialism that kills and displaces millions overseas.
We must achieve full emancipation for African American people as well as Black people abroad affected by American corporate greed by first addressing the modern-day enslavement within the prison industrial complex and working class wage slavery. The prison slavery system, which claims to be for “rehabilitation,” instead fills the pockets of the bourgeoisie, the rich, by exploiting the working class.
We advocate for complete liberation, including fair retrials for unjustly imprisoned people and rehabilitation for actual criminals. Our goal is not to rain on anyone’s parade, but to create a system that punishes exploiting classes for their crimes against humanity. As we celebrate and reflect, we must remains dedicated to working for true freedom for all oppressed by the capitalists—whether unjustly incarcerated, exploited by American industry, or oppressed abroad.