No One Is Free Until All Are Free

Let's celebrate the two weeks between Juneteenth and July 4th with the same gusto we give to the Christmas holidays.

Photo via the New York Public Library on Unsplash

The truth is, we didn’t think about slavery very much when I was growing up. Didn’t talk about it too much, either.

Every once in a while, Aunt Maxine would change the lyrics to Disney’s Davy Crockett theme song, calling Tennessee the “meanest state in the land of the free” instead of the greenest one.

But my mother shushed her when she said things like that. Neither of my parents wanted our minds poisoned by America’s past sins before we had a chance to figure out who we were, got ourselves grounded.