Our Statement on Juneteenth

We mark the Juneteenth holiday with mixed emotions. While it commemorates the day that enslaved people in Galveston, TX learned they were freed from slavery, this news came more than two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.   

Let that sit for a minute and consider what it meant for the men, women, girls, and boys, who continued to live in bondage for 900 more days than the law required. The families who continued to be separated, the earnings that were never paid for work and services rendered, the cruelty of the continued mental and physical stress of freedom denied.  

The news finally did arrive, and change did eventually come, but the people that benefited from the system made sure that it didn’t come too quickly.  

Let us use this Juneteenth holiday to remember that even when change takes more time than it should, we can work together to make it happen. We mark this day resolved to do what we can to advance equity and to work more quickly toward a Chicago region where Black residents, whose ancestors we honor today — have true opportunity to prosper.