Juneteenth and the Long Arc of American Freedom

Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a literary treasure that all of us should commit to heart. This week, on Juneteenth, Isaac Newton Farris Jr. reflects on the famous words of his uncle, Martin Luther King Jr., and how they embody the meaning of a holiday that is a reminder not only of the darkest chapter in America’s history, but of how our country has continually sought to realize its founding promise of freedom and democracy for all.

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“We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. . . . If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.”

So wrote my uncle, Martin Luther King Jr., in his famous 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

I was only 1 when he wrote these words. But today, on Juneteenth, five years since the day was made a federal holiday, those words remain profoundly relevant. Juneteenth officially commemorates the end of a dark chapter in American history: June 19, 1865, when enslaved blacks in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom. That day came a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation—a long, arduous delay resulting from slaveholders deliberately withholding the news, and a shortage of Union troops to prevent them from doing so.

Yet equally as important as that history is Juneteenth’s demonstration of how the principles that inspired America’s creation—democracy and freedom—can, like Dr. King said, be temporarily compromised, but never ultimately replaced or defeated.