Millions of Americans marked Juneteenth on Friday, recalling the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and free the last enslaved people. The holiday, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021, honors a celebration that African American communities have kept alive for generations.
But this year's observance comes as the freedoms Juneteenth represents face renewed threats. The holiday is a reminder that progress is not guaranteed—and that powerful forces are working to reverse it.
A History of Broken Promises
Under President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved people in Texas and the Confederacy were legally free as of January 1, 1863. But without enforcement, slavery persisted until Major General Gordon Granger arrived with Union troops, both Black and white, to compel compliance.
The brief flowering of justice during Reconstruction was crushed by the so-called Redemption movement and the Compromise of 1877, which withdrew federal troops from the South. That betrayal opened the door to Jim Crow laws, segregation, and disenfranchisement that lasted for a century.
It took the civil rights movement—and the courage of activists facing deadly resistance—to win federal voting and civil rights laws in the 1960s. For nearly 200 of America's 250 years, the Declaration's promise of equality was denied to Black Americans.
MAGA's War on History and Voting Rights
Now, that hard-won progress is being dismantled. The Voting Rights Act, once a bipartisan landmark, has been gutted by conservative Supreme Court justices and Republican lawmakers who claim racism is no longer a problem—even as overt bigotry resurges.
Republican opposition to Juneteenth itself is telling. Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) called the holiday a left-wing invention to "make Americans feel bad." MAGA pundit Eric Metaxas labeled it "evil" and "a bitter, cynical, divisive, anti-American joke."
These attacks are part of a broader effort to whitewash history through library and classroom purges, alongside a multi-pronged assault on voting rights. Former President Donald Trump has tried to hobble the U.S. Postal Service to suppress mail-in voting and pushed the anti-voter SAVE Act. The Trump Justice Department recently sent 100 agents to harass a voter registration group in Ohio—a move the Brennan Center called "an egregious abuse of law enforcement."
Betraying Republican History
This anti-democratic push betrays the party's own legacy. Seventy years ago, a Republican president sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central High School. Today, MAGA leaders have declared war on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and a 2023 poll found most Republicans oppose teaching Juneteenth in schools.
The holiday's bipartisan passage in 2021, in the wake of George Floyd's killing, now feels like a distant moment of unity. Trump's executive orders against DEI have already led some funders to pull support from community Juneteenth celebrations.
As Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way, wrote: "The defeat of slavery and the advance of freedom should be celebrated by all Americans, not just Black people." The coalitions that won those victories—in the Civil War and the civil rights era—succeeded at great cost. Their history is both truthful and hopeful. Americans should learn it, celebrate it, and defend it.
