MLK called for a “minister’s march” after Bloody Sunday in Selma, 1965. At the same time, Jerry Falwell said pastors should stay out of politics. A bit more than a decade later he founded the Moral Majority with the slogan, “Get ‘em saved. Get ‘em baptized. Get ‘em registered.”

Historians speak truth of the dead. Whether that truth is good or ill was up to them.

Hundreds of words about a “second Reconstruction” and zero mention of Black Americans. Not even a nod to the ways race has and still creates dysfunction in the government. A massive underestimation of how race divides people and how that limits what is politically possible. Very disappointing.

Happy Juneteenth! Here are some basic facts and history to revisit. Feel free to share!

The graphic below is a side-by-side comparison of what America 250 and Juneteenth each say about freedom, history, and what this anniversary truly represents. When you think about Juneteenth and the Fourth of July, do you celebrate one, both, or neither? What shapes that decision for you?

White Americans keep looking to 1930s Germany for lessons on authoritarianism, but they ignore Black Americans who have survived it here. Slavery, Jim Crow, and racialized state violence are forms of American authoritarianism.