Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom

Peacemaker editor and publisher Afrique Kilimanjaro was the keynote speaker during a Juneteenth Shabbat service at Temple Emanuel Greensboro. Below is that presentation. To hear her speech, visit Facebook.com and in the search box type Temple Emanuel Greensboro, N.C. Then scroll down.

Shabbat Shalom.

I am honored to stand before you tonight on this bimah at Temple Emanuel as we observe and celebrate Juneteenth.

It was on this day, June 19, 1865, when General Gordon Granger arrived with 2,000 Union Army troops in Galveston, Texas, to issue General Order Number 3, which declared a simple, revolutionary truth to the people of Texas, that all slaves are free.

Though President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years prior, enslavers in Texas had deliberately withheld the news and refused to comply. Granger’s mission was to finally enforce that freedom, breaking the chains for more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state. His arrival reminds us that liberation in the American South was not swift; it came in waves, in fragments, fiercely contested and often delayed.

Tonight, we come together as a Jewish congregation to reflect on this history. We gather to celebrate the resilience, the rich culture, and the freedom of Black Americans. And it is profoundly fitting that we engage in this reflection within the walls of this sanctuary. As Jewish people, our collective consciousness centers on our long, arduous journey from bondage to liberation. Every spring, we remember during Passover that “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt,” and we are commanded by our tradition not just to recall this historical time, but to actively re-live the breaking of the chains of bondage by participating in a Seder.

Jewish history connects directly to the history of Black people whose families endured the multi-generational trauma of chattel slavery. We share an understanding of how historical wounds often echo down through generations and shape our identities.

But we cannot speak of slavery in the abstract without confronting the painful truth of United States history. Slavery is America’s deepest, most foundational wound. For centuries, millions of human beings were treated as literal property, their fundamental humanity systematically denied. Families were brutally torn apart and sold on auction blocks, lives were violently controlled, and generational wealth was built entirely on stolen labor.

Although the physical chains of bondage were “finally broken on that first Juneteenth,” the road to true equality has been incredibly steep, “winding” through the eras of Jim Crow, legal segregation, and systemic disenfranchisement that persists even today.

Yet, Juneteenth is fundamentally a day of hope. And it stands as a testament to the resilience and the strength of the human spirit.   

I stand before you tonight as a living embodiment of that spirit. I come from a long line of justice warriors—people who took courageous stands for freedom and equality.

My family background is rich, diverse, and deeply layered, spanning far beyond a single label. I am Black, and I am Jewish, and my identity is also shaped by my ancestors who were rooted in Africa, Europe and the Americas. 

In my bones, the history of the Exodus meets the concrete struggles of the American South. I am the child of a family whose branches include pioneering educators, public health healers, railroad organizers and rural farmers. We are a family that has remained anchored by a foundational calling which is the pursuit of truth, dignity and justice.

A central thread of my family’s legacy is woven in ink, newspapers and media, which stretches back now more than 160 years. My paternal great-great-grandfather, Alexander Stephenson, was one of the foundational authors of this legacy.

My great-great-grandfather had been enslaved on a plantation near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Upon his emancipation in 1863, he put on a blue uniform and mustered in with the Union Army heading South from Virginia to Fort Smith, Arkansas. According to records at the National Archives, Alexander served in the 11th and the 113th Regiments of the United States Colored Infantry. He fought on the battlefields in Arkansas at Fort Smith on August 24, 1864, and at Boggs’ Mill on January 24, 1865.

While serving in the Army, Alexander took up the tools of truth- the printed word- and became a pressman with the United States Printing Service. Documents indicate that he earned a monthly wage of $7.

In a world where literacy had been strictly illegal for Black people just a few months prior, my great-great-grandfather was handling type, pressing ink to paper, and documenting a new era of American history. He recognized that the printing press was an instrument of freedom, more powerful than any rifle.

He also married my great- great -grandmother, Easta, a member of the Tahlequah Nation of the Cherokee Indians. 

For generations, the stories of my ancestors who endured chattel slavery like Alexander Stevenson, have been passed down through my family. My father was born in Fort Smith and grew up in Little Rock, chronicling those stories. My mother comes from the rich, rural soil of Jackson, North Carolina, in Northampton County. On her side, there are houses of worship and homes dating back to the antebellum period, still standing today, that were built by our ancestors. My maternal grandparents were sharecroppers — farmers who toiled in the fields, working land they did not own, yet cultivating a deep, enduring love for the earth. Because of them, I love all things agriculture.

Today, I understand that the intersection of Jewish and African American history and identity is bridged by a core principle: Tikkun Olam— the holy obligation to repair a broken world. As Jews, we believe that God left creation intentionally incomplete, leaving a fractured vessel so that human beings could become active partners in the ongoing work of healing. The work of Tikkun Olam means we cannot be passive observers in the face of human suffering. We cannot look at systemic racism, environmental injustice, or the erosion of civil rights in our communities and say, “That is not my problem.”

We are commanded to act. As the prophet Micah urgently reminds us, what does God require of us? “To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Now, “to do justice” is not a passive feeling. It is not an abstract philosophical concept or a comfortable political debate. It is a verb. It requires hands-on labor. It requires picking up the pen, showing up at the city council meeting, organizing the community, and standing in unyielding solidarity with the marginalized. It means using our unique skills - whether in science, public health, journalism, law or education - to actively dismantle the barriers that prevent true equity.

Doing justice is rarely easy. It requires immense courage, and it requires grueling, often thankless work. We know that the struggle for freedom and equality is never truly finished. Every generation faces its own pharaohs, its own versions of oppression, fear and restricted liberties.

In today’s world, we see massive challenges in our society and across the globe. We see a rise of hatred, antisemitism, racism and xenophobia. We still see systems that deny people their full rights and strip away the dignity they deserve as children of God.

Juneteenth reminds us to look deeply at the present and build a better future. We must speak up for the vulnerable. We must use whatever platforms we have been blessed with - whether it is the press, the classroom, the courts or the voting booth - to ensure that “liberty and justice for all” transitions from a grand slogan into a lived reality for everyone in our community. We must ensure our civic institutions are equitable, accessible, and deeply responsive to the needs of all residents.

Alexander Stephenson did not finish the work of civil rights when he marched into war with the Union Army. My sharecropping grandparents did not finish the work when they survived the Jim Crow South and nurtured the southern soil. My parents didn’t finish the work when they courageously participated in the Civil Rights Movement and established the Carolina Peacemaker newspaper right here in Greensboro, and I won’t finish it either.

This is because none of us can solve all the world’s problems alone. But we definitely are not free to walk away from the table. 

So tonight, let us give thanks for the brave people who have fought for freedom and paved the way for a more just America. And let us honor our shared history by standing together as allies, as neighbors, as family — mischpacha (means family in Hebrew) — to build a future where everyone is treated with absolute dignity and respect.

Happy Juneteenth. Shabbat Shalom.