Juneteenth Is a Celebration of Freedom
We understandably think of slavery in terms of the brutal terms of which it consists. But it can also be properly understood by what it lacks: freedom—over where someone can work, can live, can move. Just as darkness is the absence of light, enslavement is the absence of liberty. By any measure, Juneteenth, the holiday today that commemorates the abolition of chattel slavery in the U.S., is a good day. On June 19, 1865, about two and a half months after the Civil War had ended, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger set in motion the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation—which President Abraham...