Mission

Juneteenth is for Everyone

Extract of Pittsford Celebrates Juneteenth Speech 2021

Juneteenth is also known as Liberation Day, Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day and Freedom Day. Next weekend will mark 156 years since Union troops finally freed the remaining slaves in Texas who labored unaware long after their legal liberation.
Juneteenth has long been celebrated in black communities.  But Juneteenth isn’t just for black Americans, Juneteenth is for all of us.  And not just Americans, countries across the world celebrate Juneteenth as well.
One of the things I love most about America is the aspirational principles on which it was founded and how the ideas about freedom led not only to the birth of a new nation, but it inspired the world. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ The founders immortalized their vision of the world that only existed in their minds and their hearts.   I know a lot of people struggle to reconcile the principles outlined in the founding documents with the way the framers actually lived their lives.  But they chose every word meticulously. ‘We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States.” And every generation has the responsibility and great privilege of continuing to move our country closer to those noble goals, rooting into the present, planning for the future, and honoring the past. Because in that very same document that bound the colonies together as a nation, they declared slaves were to be counted as only 3/5ths a person.
Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate all of the progress that has been made because the work has been so hard for so long and it’s not over yet.  Today, we have all come here for a celebration, and celebrate we shall.  Today, we will appreciate how far we have already come.  We must appreciate our history, because with every instance of injustice and suffering, there were people fighting against it.  And that is the America I feel compelled to not only celebrate, but to acknowledge and honor.  I was thrilled to learn of about underground railroad activities right here in Pittsford. Abolitionists like John Brown Jr. and Samuel Crump are veritable heroes.  I feel certain that the abolitionist of the day celebrated the end of the civil war as well as the passing of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.  
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  There have been a few other versions like, Tyranny anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.  And I’m going to be super-presumptuous and add my own take on it, because I want it to be very clear that Juneteenth is for everyone because, A victory for freedom anywhere, is a cause for celebration everywhere.