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The following is a reflection authored by Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) African-American Alliance Manager Dazia Wallerson:
At the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), we offer our heartfelt wishes to everyone marking Juneteenth.
In 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was declared, Black Americans in Texas finally heard what should have been said long before — you are free.
Thinking about Juneteenth and the abolition of slavery in the United States, I honor the endurance and faith it took to keep moving, step by step, toward justice and freedom. A freedom that impacts all Americans today.
My mind goes to the labor and the weight of it, the exhaustion, the despair that filled the days before that message reached Galveston. Then, the release. The victory. The sharp, freeing joy of hearing freedom spoken out loud at last. I think about what it required to keep pushing forward when there was no proof anything would ever change, and the choice to face it side by side instead of trying to survive it alone.
As a descendant of chattel slavery, I don’t just know this history, I carry it. It’s part of why I’m here at all, and it’s why I can’t ignore anyone else’s chains, visible or not.
In my role as African-American Alliance Manager at CAM, I return to one question again and again — what does it look like when two communities, familiar with the burden of hatred, choose to stand together against it? That’s what we aim to do, to combat antisemitism, racism, and hate in any form it takes. Not because it’s comfortable, but because it has to be done.
I carry a torch that was passed down, lit by the people who never got to witness the freedom they struggled to bring into reach. I carry it for those who didn’t make it, and for those who did and still kept going. Juneteenth isn’t only about memory or a holiday, it’s an inheritance, and it comes with responsibility.
That’s the call Juneteenth places in front of all of us — not just to remember, but to keep working for our shared humanity, together, until that promise is real for everyone.
