Freedom Was Taken, Not Given
Celebrating Black resilience on Juneteenth and pledging to uproot systemic trauma
Freedom did not drift in behind a cavalry column, it erupted from the souls of enslaved Black Texans who refused to bow. They slowed the cotton to a crawl, shattered gins, nursed fevers that were rebellion in disguise, and by moonfire slipped through bayou and mesquite to maroon strongholds or across the Río Grande into a Mexico that had already outlawed bondage. Praise songs became encrypted cartography, while rifles ferried north gleamed beneath burlap floors.
The grape‑vine telegraph outran every army dispatch, carrying Lincoln’s decree into cabins and cane rows months before dusty Union blue arrived in Galveston. By June 19, 1865, these women, men, and children had already shattered the myth of their captivity, and General Order No. 3 merely echoed their own proclamation of sovereignty, dignity, and the unbreakable right to shape tomorrow.
The day was proclaimed Juneteenth.
People wrapped the newborn holiday in prayer circles, shared potluck tables, and the thunder of drums that promised no one would stand alone again.
Generations kept the flame alive, even when the nation tried to douse its light.
Commemoration is strategy. Every Juneteenth gathering, whether a grandmother braids freedom songs into her grandson’s hair or a city street erupts in parade banners, each rehearsal insists that Black breath is never rationed. When we show up, we do more than remember, we widen the future.
Yet memory alone cannot uproot the rot that slavery planted. The trauma did not vanish in 1865; it calcified in laws, city maps, school funding, medical bias, and the kneeling weight of a system that still asks Black bodies to carry more than their share. To honor Juneteenth honestly, we must learn the names of the policies, demand their overhaul, and amplify Black‑led visions for reparative justice.
Start local. Listen before you speak. Then speak with the full power of your lineage behind you. Volunteer at Black‑centered mutual‑aid kitchens, show up at city‑council meetings where zoning lines strangle Black neighborhoods, redirect your purchasing power toward Black artisans. Across the country in 2025, free festivals, history walks, and STEM workshops bloom from Atlanta’s Glover Park to Chicago’s Beverly/Morgan Park. Let those spaces school you in joy as well as grief.
Juneteenth teaches that delay is not defeat, and that liberation will thunder twice as loud when it arrives. We who are not Black, step into the circle as witnesses, students, allies. Our task is to keep old chains from being reforged in subtler metals, to confront racist jokes at family tables, to defend honest history in classrooms, to vote as if Harriet is watching.
If you have ever lit a candle for justice, let Juneteenth be the day you turn that flame into action. Be the thick heat of accountability, and promise that no one’s freedom will wait an extra heartbeat on your watch.
How will you let Juneteenth rewrite the story of your life? The comments are open; bring your listening ears and your revolutionary plans.
In Root & Ritual,
Ayana
If this stirred something in you—if your spirit nodded in recognition—then stay a while. Subscribe to Root & Ritual for stories, spells, and soul-deep guidance as we walk this path together…intuitively, wildly, unapologetically.
Unleash Your Dark Feminine Roar
Hard truth: “Be nice” was never a survival strategy; it was a muzzle.
