This week includes two milestones to remember in our nation’s racial history. June 19 is our national holiday of Juneteenth. The first short video posted below is a good summary of the meaning of this important day. It is a time to reflect on both our nation’s founding principles of equality and justice for all and the struggle to live into those principles from the time of slavery and up to the present. The author Robert P. Jones who is white and whose birthday falls on Juneteenth wrote a recent piece in which he called for us to have a “Critical Patriotism” by which we recognize the racial injustice that permeates our history and work to repair those injustices in order to live as true patriots who uphold our nation’s founding principles. This is especially important as the Trump administration tries to whitewash our history and promote a shallow kind of patriotism that confuses denial with strength.
The other milestone to remember this week is the 10th anniversary of the murders of nine Black people by a white supremacist during a Bible study at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC on June 17, 2015. This horrific act of racial violence captivated the nation. Yet instead of being a singular tragedy, it was one of a series of high profile deaths of innocent Black people by avowed white supremacists and law enforcement officers over the course of a decade culminating in but not ending with the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. This painful part of our history is essential to remember if we are ever to become the “critical patriots” who are committed to the equality of all people as beloved children of God. The second video posted below commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Mother Emmanuel murders. Yet it also points forward by focusing on the story of Eliana Pinckney, the daughter of Pastor Clementa Pinckney who was one of the nine people murdered. She was 11 years old at the time of her father’s death. Please take the time to watch the video and listen carefully to her thoughts about that horrible tragedy and her life moving forward. As a 21 year old woman, she offers a wonderful example of what it means to both remember the impact of racial hatred and recommit to the legacy of love and hope instilled by her late father.