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Reflection from our Pastors
Thursday, June 19, 2025
Juneteenth
Today we celebrate Juneteenth. Short for “June Nineteenth,” the Federal holiday marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed, on June 19, 1865. Slaveholders in Texas had kept the information of President Abe Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to themselves, extending the period of violent exploitation of enslaved African Americans. The troops arrived with the news a full two-and-a-half years after its signing in 1863. (History.com)
Author of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, tells us that “Juneteenth celebrates the liberation of those who had been enslaved in the United States, specifically marking the day that the last enslaved people were emancipated on June 19, 1865. Although President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which freed the slaves in Confederate states, it was ignored in Texas until the Civil War ended in 1865 due to the state’s small number of Union troops.” Hannah-Jones continues, “It is when General Gordan Granger, a Union general, marched to the farthest reaches of Texas, the furthest West of the slave states and the last to get the information that slavery had ended. Several months after the civil war, people there who had been laboring in bondage finally found out that they were indeed free.” (June 19, 2020 interview on ‘The View’)
Spiritual guide and author Cole Authur Riley asks that we join voices on this day…
We pray peace and deep rest for our ancestors. Those who labored without agency over their bodies for generations and those who chose the sea.
Holding memory, we proclaim:
We will not be owned.
We marvel at the dreamers -- those who clung to an imagination for liberation regained. Those who fought, strategized, organized.
Holding memory, we proclaim:
We will not be owned.
We thank you for those who became our own historians -- who preserved culture in whispers by moonlight, transmitting song and name.
Holding memory, we proclaim:
We will not be owned.
We grieve for the brutality of families alienated from one another, the daughter ripped from her mother's breast, sister torn from brother. And we honor all the ways our people formed new familial bonds, rising to nurture children and impart tenderness on those the oppressor sought to harden. Strengthen our own bonds now that the invisible thread stretching between each holy Black soul would be fortified by compassion and intergenerational healing.
Holding memory, we proclaim:
We will not be owned.
God, we pause for everybody broken, bruised, and lynched. There are stories that reside in our bodies both known and unknown to us. Keep us near to our own flesh, that we would protect one another from the brutality of white capitalism. May the rest and care that were denied to our ancestors be found in us today.
Holding memory, we proclaim:
We will not be owned.
And this joy in us, this durable, defiant joy, would you shield it from the mouth of despair? Remind us there is no void that can match the strength of our collective hope. Keep our songs alive, every verse, every dance. May our humor survive, as we play and laugh. Show us the many faces of joy, that all who dare encounter will find themselves at home.
Holding memory, we proclaim:
We will not be owned.
Now may the same God who spoke to Harriet make the sound of liberation clear as night to us. May the divine hold us in the same holy darkness that protected our ancestors on the journey. And as we remember, may they shield us from despair, knowing that our story is more than pain. Ours is the story of dignity. Let us reclaim it.
Asé*
Breathe
Inhale: Liberation is ours.
Exhale: God, teach me the sound of freedom.
(Excerpt from Black Liturgies, by Cole Arthur Riley, Juneteenth, 2024)
Please spend some time this day to honor our African-American siblings in Christ.
Blessings,
Mother Rosean
*Asé is a word of affirmation, similar to the word ‘Amen’ at the end of a prayer. It means, “Right on!” “Yes!” “I’m with you!” So when someone says something you like, say Asé loud and proud, for it is definitely not a meek and retiring word.)
Juneteeth Flag commerating the Juneteenth Holiday. Picture courtesy of Wixipedia
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