I’m seeing some incorrect statements about Juneteenth. It’s not when the slaves were freed. Juneteenth is when the Union army finally made it to Texas and told the last slaves in Texas that they were free.

Can you imagine? Finding out you had been a free person for 1/

Two years? The mix of anger, elation, and confusion.

I think about that moment a lot. What were they doing? Did they dance in the fields. Did they hug and cry. Did the scream with joy.

What hope might’ve filled their hearts?

What dreams flashed before the eyes of the mothers and fathers as they gazed at their children. They would be no man’s property.

This next generation would be better and have better.

I think about that moment a lot.

Why, because yes we are free. Yes, we aren’t laboring in fields and chasing the North Star to better life.

But

My god, we still aren’t truly free. We are better, but we have been failed, persecuted, and killed time and time again throughout this failed American experiment.

I’m tired of having to be a survivor in white America’s systemic cauldron of proud hate.

We have been freed and we are still fighting. We have accomplished many a dream. Climbed many a mountaintop. Carved out our communities only for them to be invaded and destroyed.

We keep going. We have to. My great grandfather and his wife gathered his children and ran away from the Mississippi delta under the cover of night, so his children would have a better life than he did. Sharecropping on another man’s land

We continue to make our own way

In this year of 2020, as black folks again fight for justice and their lives, Happy Juneteenth.

I’m proud to be black. We are fighters. Beaten, but unbowed. One day, I hope we won’t have to fight. That freedom call will finally ring true

#BlackLivesMatter

If you enjoyed this thread and want to support my emotional labor look no further than below. I’m a black writer with bills to pay.

Cashapp $Zario21
http://ko-fi.com/zlanier21 
Venmo Zaire-Lanier
Paypal [email protected]

Also, for Juneteenth, I’d like it if you guys could share my Kickstarter and help me hit some of those stretch goals. It’s an Afropunk fantasy horror comic.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theboneherder/the-bone-herder