“We are reclaiming our time,” says Dr. Gregory Carr of Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday.

KPFA - UpFront

On today’s UpFront:

0:08 – We spend the hour with Dr. Gregory Carr (@AfricanaCarr), Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University who joins us to chart the path of making Juneteenth a federal holiday. We start in Washington, just hours before the bill is signed where Carr meets figures like Opal Lee, who in 2016 famously walked 1,400 miles from Fort Worth, Texas to Washinton, DC to gain Congressional support for Juneteenth.

While it’s signage into law is very timely, coming just days before the actual date on the calendar, Carr argues that Juneteenth is not just simply a day in history. It is a story about self-determinism, the Civil War, the death of Abraham Lincoln, the rise of the black press in America, and the legacy of black people emancipating themselves.

Photo: Juneteenth Statue / Former State Rep. Al Edwards by nsaum is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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