Juneteenth — a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth” — marks an historic day in American historical past.
On at the present time in 1865, in Galveston, Texas, the final enslaved people within the U.S. lastly heard the liberating phrases of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, a very good two and a half years after it was initially issued.
Today began as a quiet acknowledgment of freedom with prayer and household gatherings — and through the years, Juneteenth has remodeled right into a widespread celebration marked by group parades, yard events, solemn memorials, and luxurious meals.
As descendants of the unique 250,000 liberated people from Galveston started to unfold throughout the nation, so too did the custom of Juneteenth.
Associated: Discover our information on how one can thoughtfully have a good time Juneteenth this 12 months
And on this custom, phrases play a big function. The quotes related to Juneteenth supply a bridge to the previous and a mirrored image on the continued journey towards equality.
As we interact within the celebration of Juneteenth, these quotes function poignant reminders of this pivotal second in historical past and its enduring relevance.
Let’s discover a number of these quotes, every providing a singular perspective on this vital American celebration:
Discover one of the best quotes about Juneteenth
Well-known Quotes
“Juneteenth means a lot to me. It represents the liberty that my ancestors fought so tirelessly for. However moderately than specializing in the brutalization of my individuals then and now. I select to concentrate on hope. June nineteenth jogs my memory that I’m the pressure of energy to vary this world and to observe within the footsteps of my ancestors to work in the direction of liberation.”
— Mariah Cooley
“Juneteenth was by no means about commemorating a delayed proclamation however about celebrating a individuals’s enduring spirit.”
— Annette Gordon-Reed
“What I like about Juneteenth is that even in that prolonged wait, we nonetheless discover one thing to have a good time. Despite the fact that the story has by no means been tidy, and Black people have needed to march and combat for each inch of our freedom, our story is nonetheless one in all progress.”
— Michelle Obama, in an Instagram publish
“Liberty is gradual fruit. It’s by no means low-cost; it’s made tough as a result of freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Your excessive independence solely reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings during which you, at the present time, rejoice, are usually not loved in frequent. The wealthy inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The daylight that introduced mild and therapeutic to you, has introduced stripes and dying to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. Chances are you’ll rejoice, I need to mourn.”
— Frederick Douglass
“Wrestle is a by no means ending course of. Freedom is rarely actually gained, you earn it and win it in each era.”
— Coretta Scott King
“Juneteenth means freedom for therefore many individuals, for therefore many causes. I attempt to get individuals to know it’s not a Texas factor, isn’t a Black factor — it’s freedom for everyone. I’m hoping, finally, we’ll have a good time from the nineteenth of June to the Fourth of July; that might be celebrating freedom.”
— Opal Lee, on Forbes
“Maintain these issues that inform your historical past and shield them. Throughout slavery, who was in a position to learn or write or preserve something? The flexibility to have someone to inform your story to is so vital… it says: “I used to be right here. I could also be offered tomorrow. However I used to be right here.””
— Maya Angelou
About Juneteenth
“Juneteenth was a promise that was damaged. Reconstruction failed and this nation has continued to wage conflict on the Black physique. Juneteenth additionally embodies the resilience of Black individuals. Even within the face of a damaged system, we select to search out pleasure in resistance and have a good time in group.”
— Obrian Rosario
“I’m hoping that Juneteenth’s historical past reminds us that we’ve acquired to take some duty for educating our individuals. It’s worn out to say ‘each educate one’, nevertheless it’s true. I’m hoping that Juneteenth is not going to simply be about festivals, however that it is going to be about uplifting one another. Might you simply think about if all of the cities within the U.S. would do Juneteenth just like the Fourth of July? Wouldn’t that be one thing? I’ve even advocated for having a celebration from the nineteenth to the Fourth of July, identical to Mardi Gras. I can dream, can’t I?”
— Opal Lee, in an interview with Shondaland
“Juneteenth has by no means been a celebration of victory or an acceptance of the way in which issues are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that regardless of probably the most painful components of our historical past, change is feasible — and there may be nonetheless a lot work to do.”
— Barack Obama, on Twitter
“This Juneteenth, we have a good time the emancipation of Black People and mirror on their activism pushing our nation in the direction of its founding beliefs. From the poll field to housing, employment, & extra — we should proceed working for equal justice. The march in the direction of freedom continues.”
— Stacey Abrams, on Twitter
“Right this moment on Juneteenth, the day we have a good time the top of slavery, the day we memorialize those that supplied us hope for the longer term and the day once we renew our dedication to the battle for freedom.”
— Angela Davis
“The 4th of July was by no means about Black individuals. Juneteenth is only for us. As Black individuals, we’re advised we don’t deserve our personal holidays rooted in our personal historical past. Every thing is whitewashed. Juneteenth is for us… Juneteenth symbolizes the hope that my youngsters and grandchildren shall be free. It’s Black Pleasure and Black tenacity to outlive.”
— Tanesha Grant
“The American schooling system has taught us as youngsters that Black individuals have historical past in ache and survival. They’ve failed to show us our historical past in pleasure, success, improvements and a lot extra. Juneteenth is a reclaim on our historical past that has been stolen. Juneteenth is larger to us than a Fourth of July or Christmas as a result of it represents our tradition, resilience, and deserving respect from a rustic WE constructed.”
— Nia White
“Juneteenth is vital to me as a result of until at the present time black persons are nonetheless topic to racial injustice on a worldwide scale, and are nonetheless victims of racial abuse no matter the place they’re from. Juneteenth permits us to recollect how far black individuals have progressed since and it’s a reminder of the energy now we have inside us.”
— Bethel Kyeza
“Each June nineteenth is a chance for us to proceed the momentum of reminiscence, and the parade and the self-determination actions.”
— Dr. Greg Carr
“The Juneteenth vote was a comparatively straightforward factor to do. There was one senator who gave up his opposition, and this was one thing that everyone agreed on. I went to the White Home for the signing. John Cornyn was there and Sheila Jackson Lee was there. They in all probability don’t agree on rather a lot, however they may agree on that. So it was a very good second. And we want feel-good moments sometimes. However we additionally want these critical issues that we would like them to maneuver on, and now we have to press them to maneuver on.”
— Annette Gordon-Reed, in an interview with The Discussion board
“Black Texans have been celebrating Juneteenth for 157 years now. And there’s a template for the sorts of belongings you do. It’s a vacation about historical past. And many of the celebrations have somebody giving a speech or dialogue of the historical past. You’ll have artwork that depicts the second. These sorts of issues that preserve the aim of the vacation upfront. And we simply must preserve doing that, and protest when individuals do issues that don’t align with the historical past.”
— Annette Gordon-Reed, in an interview with The Discussion board
“Making Juneteenth an American vacation and never only a Black vacation underscores that People — all People — are (or must be) rightly proud that we did away with an establishment existentially at conflict with one of the best model of ourselves.”
— Jonah Goldberg
“All through historical past, Juneteenth has been identified by many names: Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Liberation Day, Emancipation Day and, at this time, a nationwide vacation.”
— Kamala Harris
“Juneteenth calls us to have interaction our nation’s complicated historical past — and acknowledge all that Black People have completed to construct and form America’s democracy, society, and tradition.”
— Pete Buttigieg
About Historical past
“If the cruelties of slavery couldn’t cease us, the opposition we now face will certainly fail. As a result of the aim of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho’ we could also be, our future is tied up with America’s future.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Slavery is theft — theft of a life, theft of labor, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the youngsters a slave may need born.”
— Kevin Bales
“Emancipation was on account of dedication, laborious work, talking up, and talking out. For individuals like me who consider in talking up and talking out, for occasions once we really feel overwhelmed, or that legal guidelines and the world is transferring backwards, it offers me hope. These landmarks from emancipation to the top of segregation and enactment of legal guidelines that push us one step nearer to equality for all offers me hope. I stay conscious that legal guidelines alone don’t trigger the change, however they offer a backing, a recognition, I consider is so vital.”
— Sikemi Okunrinboye
“The historical past of slavery is the historical past of the US. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it. It isn’t irrelevant to our up to date society; it created it. This historical past is in our soil, it’s in our insurance policies, and it should, too, be in our recollections.”
— Clint Smith, How the Phrase Is Handed: A Reckoning with the Historical past of Slavery Throughout America
“Sooner or later it’s now not a query of whether or not we will be taught this historical past however whether or not now we have the collective will to reckon with it.”
— Clint Smith, How the Phrase Is Handed
“After I take into consideration the historical past of slavery and racism on this nation, I take into consideration how fast we’re to espouse notions of progress with out accounting for its unsure and serpentine path.”
— Clint Smith, How the Phrase Is Handed
“I lengthy for the time when all of the human historical past is taught as one historical past, as a result of it truly is one historical past.”
— Maya Angelou
Inspirational Quotes
“If whence you got here, there may be actually no restrict to the place you possibly can go.”
— James Baldwin
“As a result of, none of us may be free till all of us are free…”
— LeVar Burton
“My humanity is sure up in yours, for we will solely be human collectively.”
— Desmond Tutu
“I prayed for freedom for twenty years, however obtained no reply till I prayed with my legs.”
— Frederick Douglas
“Unshackled from terror, To like is how we vow that we’re right here, that we’re. It’s how we break away.”
— Amanda Gorman
“You could by no means, ever give out. We should preserve the religion as a result of we’re one individuals. We’re brothers and sisters. All of us dwell in the identical home: The American home.”
— John Lewis
“Each Black particular person you meet is a MIRACLE. We’re descended of lineages meant to be destroyed by slavery or colonization. Our lives are hard-fought and hard-earned. We’re priceless. We’re precious due to our humanity-and declared precious as a result of our ancestors declared our price once they fought for us to dwell.”
— Brittany Packnett Cunningham, in an Instagram publish
“Learning atrocities dedicated by our ancestors isn’t an indictment of you. It’s a lesson for us.
Acknowledging the horrors of our historical past isn’t a supply of division. It’s a pressure for unity.
Recognizing yesterday’s oppression aligns us to pursue tomorrow’s freedom.”
— Adam Grant
“Each Juneteenth, I take into consideration how generations of individuals fought for a freedom they knew they may not see themselves, however they fought for it anyway as a result of they knew some day, somebody would. My life, my youngsters’s lives, are solely doable due to these centuries of battle.”
— Clint Smith, in a 2023 tweet
“Should you dare to battle, you dare to win. Should you dare not battle, then rattling it, you don’t should win.”
— Fred Hampton
“There are nonetheless many causes price sacrificing for, a lot historical past but to be made.”
— Michelle Obama
On Freedom & Liberation
“Whether or not it’s freedom to precise, freedom to dwell, freedom to earn, freedom to thrive, freedom to be taught, no matter it’s, I need to make it possible for I’m part of these areas and opening doorways.”
— Angela Rye
“No one’s free till all people’s free.”
— Fannie Lou Hamer
“Freedom to me means the power to have an honest place to dwell, a spot the place the individuals round me have those self same issues, and that we don’t have poverty like now we have it now.
Freedom to me means all people having what they want. It means schooling of our youngsters, healthcare for each one who wants it. Freedom means having the ability to dialogue and be taught from someone from one other race and never dwelling on this local weather of hate and resentment that we’re dwelling in now. That’s what freedom means to me.”
— Opal Lee, in an interview with Shondaland
“I wish to be remembered as an individual who wished to be free… so different individuals can be additionally free.”
— Rosa Parks
“You may’t separate peace from freedom, as a result of nobody may be at peace except he has his freedom.”
— Malcom X
“I had crossed the road. I used to be free; however there was nobody to welcome me to the land of freedom. I used to be a stranger in a wierd land.”
— Harriet Tubman
“Freedom is rarely voluntarily given by the oppressor; it should be demanded by the oppressed.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Emancipation wasn’t a present bestowed on the slaves; it was one thing they took for themselves, the fruits of their lengthy battle for freedom, which started as quickly as chattel slavery was established within the seventeenth century, and gained even larger steam with the Revolution and the start of a rustic dedicated, not less than rhetorically, to freedom and equality.
In combating that battle, Black People would open up new vistas of democratic risk for all the nation.”
— Jamelle Bouie, in a New York Occasions opinion article
“Juneteenth might mark only one second within the battle for emancipation, however the vacation offers us an event to mirror on the profound contributions of enslaved Black People to the reason for human freedom.
It offers us one other solution to acknowledge the central place of slavery and its demise in our nationwide story.
And it offers us a chance to do not forget that American democracy has extra authors than the shrewd attorneys and erudite farmer-philosophers of the Revolution, that our experiment in liberty owes as a lot to the women and men who toiled in bondage because it does to anybody else on this nation’s historical past.”
— Jamelle Bouie, in a New York Occasions opinion article
Extra Sayings & Captions
“I don’t know if I’ve gotten over the truth that every one in all us must be liable for making our nation the nation it must be. We are able to’t depart it to the federal government and to different individuals to do it. Make ourselves a committee of 1 to deal with the issues which are occurring that we all know may be erased. That’s all I must see. I hope individuals will pay attention that we will do that.”
— Opal Lee, on Forbes
“However what a sense can come over a person simply from seeing the issues he believes in and hopes for symbolized within the concrete type of a person. In one thing that offers a spotlight to all the opposite issues he is aware of to be actual. One thing that makes unseen issues manifest and permits him to return to his hopes and goals via his outer eye and thru the contact and really feel of his pure hand.”
— Ralph Ellison, Juneteenth
“Right this moment on Juneteenth, the day we have a good time the top of slavery, the day we memorialize those that supplied us hope for the longer term and the day once we renew our dedication to the battle for freedom.”
— Angela Davis, in a speech for ILWU Juneteenth Work Motion
“Yearly we should remind successive generations that this occasion triggered a collection of occasions that one after the other defines the challenges and duties of successive generations. That is why we want this vacation.”
— Al Edwards
“Understanding historical past is one in all some ways to interrupt the cycle. Raise up/amplify Black voices. Assist Black owned companies. Attain again. Mentor.”
— Chadwick Boseman
“What’s the morality that might say that the oppressors’ model of historic occasions ought to naturally take priority over the information of the oppressed?”
— Annette Gordon-Reed
“This Juneteenth, we have a good time the emancipation of Black People and honor those that fought for this nation to dwell as much as its founding beliefs of liberty and equality for all. Might we honor their legacies via motion — constructing a world fueled by justice and steeped in fairness.”
— Stacey Abrams, on Twitter
