Today is Juneteenth National Independence Day, a federal holiday so declared on June 19, 2021 under the Biden administration. Other titles for the day include “Jubilee Day”; “Emancipation Day”; “Freedom Day”; “Black Independence Day.” Each title sheds light on its meaning.
Juneteenth was first celebrated on June 19, 1866, and commemorated the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas following the Civil War. Word had not made it to the frontiers of Texas, so Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery. This holiday is also celebrated in a number of Mexican communities where many African Americans fled during slavery times. Descendants of black Seminoles known as Mascogos , who escaped from black slavery in 1852 and settled in Coahuila, Mexico, celebrate Juneteenth Day.
Juneteenth holiday of 2021 was only the first national holiday declared since that of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1983. It is telling that both of those holidays concern the black community, its sufferings and its achievements.
At this sad time in American history, the so-called Supreme Court has knighted itself to gut the hard-earned and blood-filled battle for civil rights laws of 1965. They have encouraged states to wipe out entire minority led districts just because a white majority in state houses can.
Meanwhile, we have entertainers on the White House lawn this week shouting obscene messages about the elegant and accomplished first Lady, Michelle Obama, the first black First Lady in our history. The current presidential couple, present at ringside during that attack, uttered no word against it.
That same president yesterday called President Obama an “SOB” in a public press conference held in Europe.
Apparently, he chafed at people reminding him that President Barack Obama negotiated a serious treaty with Iran 11 years ago that actually guaranteed they would not make or acquire nuclear weapons and did so without going to war with Iran or getting the Hormuz Straits closed.
My thoughts go back to Howard Thurman, and Luther E. Smith Jr.’s book, Howard Thurman: The Mystic as Prophet. There, he explains how a society can claim itself Christian and racist at the same time. After all, the Ku Klux Klan claimed a Christian garment not unlike the “Christian Nationalists” of our time, who have found a welcome home in the MAGA movement. At times, America has become a place where “Christianity becomes a religion of the ruling powers, of those who seek to control the lives of the weak, poor, and oppressed.”
Smith cites Thurman, who declares that “the striking similarity between the social position of Jesus in Palestine and that of the vast majority of American Negroes is obvious to anyone who tarries long over the facts.” It is because Christianity is essentially a religion of and for the disinherited that it is appropriately a religion of and for black Americans, says Smith.
Thurman says: How a man describes his belief in God when his life is serene and his place and position are safe and secure may differ radically from what he has to say when the storm is raging and the winds are wild and unrestrained…. What a man has to say about the meaning of God when he lives in a society which he largely controls and in which he is accepted may be quite different from what he has to say about the same God if he lives in a society in which he is always marginal and of no account….The test of any religion, as far as its impact upon mankind is concerned, turns on what word does it have to share about God with men who are the disinherited, the outsiders, the fringe dwellers removed from the citadels of power and control in the society.*
Luther Smith, Howard Thurman: The Mystic as Prophet, pp. 111, 113.
Banner Image: Celebrating Juneteenth at its birthplace: a Juneteenth flag waves in the holiday parade in Galveston, TX, on June 19, 2025. Photo by 2C2K Photography on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
What does the celebration of Juneteenth mean to you in this year, 2026? And what does Thurman’s discourse on how the poor and the comfortable look at God differently say to you and the times we are living in?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation.
2 thoughts on “Juneteenth Day, 2026”
Thank you Matthew for today’s DM reminding us of the importance of Juneteenth Day, a ‘new’ national holiday (since 2023}. Along with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (since 1983) and Indigenous Peoples Day (since 2021), we need these national holiday celebrations and reminders of the continued healing and liberation that our country still needs from the past tragic atrocities of genocide, slavery, and cruelty suffered by our ancestors. The arc of healing and social justice still continues because racism and economic injustices still exist as Humanity and Sacred Mother Earth are still evolving spiritually both personally and communally…
Remember the words of Jesus, from Matthew 25, what I do to the “least” (most despised and neglected) of people
I do to Christ; and what I don’t do, but should, I withhold from Christ. Current ecological spirituality includes the environment, all creatures not human–God is present in the creatures I protect or abuse, waste and pollute.