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This list was previously published and has been updated for 2023.
Dont let the day off and the parties fool you.
In fact, its a day that ought to unsettle our comforts.
The fine print: This commemoration of slaverys end is a lesson in how its power persisted.
In 2023, a number of stories appeared in the news surrounding Juneteenth conflicts.
This year, the federalization and commercialization of Juneteenth continue to expose the political inconsistencies of its national embrace.
This list of Juneteenth reads was curated to support the former rather than the latter.
He responds: Thankee Jesus!
Somebody come ast about Cudjo!
I am a thing.
Though these novels often explore the harrowing conditions of the peculiar institution through humor (The devils country home.
Thats what the South is, one of Reeds characters remarks) and haunting (124 was spiteful.
Full of a babys venom.
What do we make of slaverys resilience?
How has it undergirded our freedom?
As Gordon-Reeds work shows, this intimate and regional specificity cannot be severed from the celebration.
I have no free ground to hold.
Every ground I walk on is the same.
AmericanSonnetsforMyPastandFutureAssassin,byTerranceHayes
It is not enough to love you.
I refuse to pass it down again.
The terms of my existence are founded on that.
Shakur likewise asserts that after a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things.
But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
What an impossible thing.
Even the most glamorous among us cannot deny the glaring fault lines in our flimsy talk of freedom.
