Free
Tanesha Grant - Juneteenth symbolizes the hope that my children and grandchildren will be free. It’s Black joy and Black tenacity to survive.
O’brian Rosario - Juneteenth also embodies the resilience of Black people. Even in the face of a broken system, we choose to find joy in resistance and celebrate in community.
Nelson Mandela - People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nikki Giovanni - Everything will change. The only question is growing up or decaying.
Bethel Kyeza - Juneteenth allows us to remember how far Black people have progressed since and it is a reminder of the strength we have within us.
Ralph Ellison - God is love, I said, but art’s the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.
Maya Angelou - Won’t it be wonderful when Black history, and Native American history, and Jewish history, and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.
Harriet Tubman - God’s time is always near. He set the North star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free.
Martin Luther King - We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Shirley Chisholm - In the end, anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing—anti-humanism.
Brandon Gonzalez - Juneteenth is an extension of that abolitionist spirit where we march forth in reflection of the struggle.
Tatiana Glover - Juneteenth has become a newly but proudly embraced commemoration in my family and we have been exploring the ways in which we want to experience and culturally embrace the date.
Sikemi Okunrinboye - Emancipation was as a result of dedication, hard work, speaking up, and speaking out.
Abhijit Naskar - Let me tell you, here and now as a black person, we don’t expect charity. We just expect the trust and dignity, to which the white person is entitled in this world by default.
Nelson Mandela - No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.
Gwen Carr - We are going to get out here, I am going to get out here and get something done. We have to wake up America. We have to make America uncomfortable like we’ve been uncomfortable for 400 yea
George Washington - I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.
Howard Thurman - Do not be silent; there is no limit to the power that may be released through you.
Abraham Lincoln - I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any Abolitionist.
James Baldwin - Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed—I, too, am America.
Coretta Scott King - Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.
Beyonce - No violence will create peace…To effect change we must show love in the face of hate and peace in the face of violence.
Chadwick Boseman - Understanding history is one of many ways to break the cycle. Lift up/amplify Black voices. Support Black owned businesses. Reach back. Mentor.
Dannese Mapanda - Juneteenth reminds me of Black freedom dreams—my freedom dreams.
Tanesha Grant - As Black people, we are told we don’t deserve our own holidays rooted in our own history. Everything is whitewashed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.
John Lewis - You must never, ever give out. We must keep the faith because we are one people. We are brothers and sisters. We all live in the same house—the American house.
Tatiana Glover - Juneteenth is another moment for me and my loved ones to build an archive of truth and experience of Black folks.
Ella Fitzgerald - Just don't give up what you're trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.
Mariah Cooley - June 19th reminds me that I am the force of power to change this world and to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors to work towards liberation.
Martin Luther King Jr. - The goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny.
Brandon Gonzalez - Studying the blueprints of liberation, one can map out the ways we as The Global African Diaspora have continued to resist and exist under regimes of anti-Black terror.
Brandon Gonzalez - Since the development of racial capitalism—the use of African peoples as capital—our ancestors have always fought for freedom.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham - Every Black person you meet is a miracle.
Zoé Samudzi - We are not ready to fight because we love fighting. We are ready to fight because we are worth fighting for.
Fatimata Cham - Liberation lies within us and will not be formed from the current institutional structures we have in place for it never has.
Richard Wright - What we want, what we represent, what we endure is what America is. If we black folk perish, America will perish.
Richard Wright - We Black folk, our history, and our present being, are a mirror of all the manifold experiences of America.
Kamala Harris - Women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all, including Black women who are often, too often overlooked, but so often prove they are the backbon
Aretha Franklin - We all require and want respect, man or woman, Black or white. It's our basic human right.
Toni Morrison - Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
Colin Kaepernick - I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.
Malcolm X - You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
Maya Angelou - You may kill me with your hatefulness. But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Pharrell Williams - The day we were free—everyone was free. Why not make it a paid holiday? We deserve that…We want a day that is inclusive to everyone.
Fannie Lou Hamer - Nobody’s until everybody’s
Martin Luther King Jr. - Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Harriet Tubman - I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.
Shirley Chisholm - In the end, anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.
Rosa Parks - I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free… so other people would be also free.
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