Participants ride a parade float during the 2026 Juneteenth Parade in Houston, June 13, 2026. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
This year marks the sixth anniversary of the U.S. honoring Juneteenth as a federal holiday, and 161 years since the day chattel slavery was considered to have ended in this country.
“People just think of Juneteenth as a festival and as a Texas thing,” Black activist Opal Lee noted in an interview conducted shortly after the Biden administration and Congress had officially made June 19 a federal holiday…