Juneteenth & Reparations

Juneteenth, which is celebrated on June 19th, recognizes the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and the official conclusion of the Civil War on May 13, 1865. This celebration date results from the arrival of General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, and announced to the inhabitants that slavery had ended. June 19th became the symbolic day for the celebration of the end of slavery following celebrations which began in Texas in 1866. As a holiday, Juneteenth is now celebrated in forty-five State and in the District of Columbia. Slavery exacted a tremendous toll on enslaved Africans and upon their descendants. For generations, Africans were forced to provide free labor for Whites and were subjected to the most brutal and degrading treatment imaginable. An increasing number of people have joined in efforts to demand Reparations for the many years of forced labor endured by the ancestors of African Americans. Many also advocate for compensation for the official sanctioned oppression and dehumanization which were inflicted upon African Americans during the “Jim Crow” era, which lasted from the late 1890s up until 1970s. By every measure, the impacts of slavery and “Jim Crow” continue to negatively impact African Americans and are the principal causes of the huge wealth gap which presently exists in the United States between Africa Americans and whites. On this show, we discussed Juneteenth and Reparations with Dr. Sandy Darity, the Director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University and Dr. Keisha Bentley-Edwards, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke University and the Research Director at the Cook Center for Social Equity.