Today we celebrate the liberation of Black Americans from slavery. Please take time to read this Democracy Now Juneteenth Special: Historian Clint Smith on Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.

We also ponder how far this country has to go before racism is finally overcome. When Barach Obama was elected, many of us thought the U.S. had finally entered its post-racist era. Today’s current events show how wrong we were.

Our brown neighbors are being torn from their homes, schools, and workplaces and crated away in the backs of rental trucks to profitable private prisons, waiting for deportation to lands that many of them have never set foot in. Our Muslim neighbors fear for their safety in our own streets. Our government has abolished DEI and erased Black American heroes from history. Our poor are seeing their health care and food access stripped away.

And then there’s the reality of police violence against our Black boys and men — the real danger of murder by cop right here in Grand Rapids. Patrick Lloya‘s killer got off without a full trial. And just last week, GRPD attacked and arrested Black community leaders Victor Williams and Ned Andree while they were doing good work in their own neighborhood.

The staff of OKT prays that 2025 may yet mirror Juneteenth, that all Americans may resist and find liberation from the machinations of an administration bent on dominating power and the brutal enrichment of the 1%.