By Abdul Osmanu
Editor’s Note: This piece about the true Independence Day, Juneteenth, is being released as a teaser for the upcoming 4th of July issue of Garnet Oak Magazine. We, the Editorial Subcommittee of the Political Education Working Group, on behalf of CT DSA, would like to wish everyone well on this holiday, and in this historic moment. Please enjoy the article.
“Freedom
Freedom come
Hold on
Won’t be long”
– Common, “Letter to the Free”
On Thursday, June 19, we celebrate what began as Jubilee Day, and what we now recognize as Juneteenth. This year, it marks 160 years since Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to finally enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and deliver the word of freedom to some of the last enslaved Black Americans. It’s a day rooted in justice and freedom, albeit delayed and granted only on paper. In spite of this day we rightfully celebrate, a true liberation for African-Americans continues to be struggled for. As we revel in remembrance, it remains important to acknowledge the abject failure that was Reconstruction and the codified repression and oppression that would follow. Though cries of freedom rang clear in Galveston, a true, meaningful freedom was denied in practice, even after soldiers arrived with rifles and resolve.
In the years since, Juneteenth has grown from a regional celebration, one nurtured in Southern cities and by families scattered across the country through the Great Migration, into a national holiday. For many, especially after the 2020 uprisings, it now carries weight as both a commemoration and a warning. It is a day of joy, yes—but it also serves as a reminder: freedom in this country is always contested, always battled for, and always unfinished.
As the son of Ghanaian immigrants, my relationship to Juneteenth is layered. I am not African American in the lineage of slavery, but I am Black in America. I was raised by a father who grew up in the aftermath of his home country’s independence from the British, a father that idolized Pan-African leaders of his youth and young adulthood: Nkrumah, Lumumba, and Sankara. With age and these fundamental beliefs, it became clear to me that our struggle, whether in Accra or Atlanta, is one and the same, though fought in different contexts and on different terrains. My father, whether intentionally or not, instilled in me an unshakeable belief in a shared global project I carry with me to this day: the liberation of all oppressed people, especially of those descended from Africa’s stolen children.
Growing up, I saw firsthand how my Blackness marked me just the same as them. I experienced the same lowered expectations in classrooms as a young child and so much more, my foreign name doing no favors to shield me from antiblackness. Moments in which I experienced antiblackness, the individuals didn’t stop to ask for my ethnicity, they merely saw the color of my skin. My experiences, while not identical, allowed me to understand the deeper level of pain and oppression endured by those whose ancestors lived through bondage on this soil. That reality demands solidarity—not silence.
To me, Juneteenth is not just a celebration of emancipation, but a charge to continue the struggle against white supremacy and oppression anywhere they exist. It reminds us that freedom is not simply declared—it must be enforced, protected, and expanded. That even when it arrives, it comes late. And that true liberation must go beyond the legal and into the material: housing, health, education, dignity.
Though many of our ancestors’ paths diverged in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, our futures and our freedoms as Black Americans tie us together. In honoring Juneteenth, I stand in reverence of the struggle waged by Black Americans while also rooting myself in the larger arc of Black freedom movements around the world. An arc that shall bend towards freedom because we bend it. Áse, InshAllah, God-willing.
“Freedom come.
Hold on.
Won’t be long.“
