Let us act to fulfil the promise of Juneteenth

On June 19, 1865, a Union general stood in Galveston, Texas, and read the order that informed enslaved Black people — two and a half years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation — that they were legally free. That delay is the subject of Juneteenth. It is also, if we are honest, a subject that belongs to New Jersey.

New Jersey was the last Northern state to abolish slavery — not until 1866, after the Civil War had already settled the question by force. By the 1830s, this state held more than two-thirds of all enslaved Black people in the North. The waiting that Juneteenth commemorates — that gap between the declaration of freedom and its actual arrival — is not only a Texas story. It is a New Jersey story.

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In June 2025, the New Jersey Reparations Council released a two-year investigation: “For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey.” Its scholars wrote: “Now is the time for New Jersey to repair what it broke.” The $643,000 racial wealth gap between the net worth of Black and white families documented in this state is the compounded evidence of that breakage — redlining, urban renewal, segregated schools, a criminal legal system that has extracted wealth and liberty from Black communities for generations. These are not metaphors. They are policy. And policy can be changed by legislation.

Somerset County — the Crossroads of the American Revolution — has placed Juneteenth at the center of its 2026 calendar. That is a recognition that the Revolution did not end in 1783, and that the full story of American freedom cannot be told without the story of delayed freedom. We must take that recognition seriously — and we ask our community to act on it.

A1665/S2838, the New Jersey Reparations Task Force Bill, would create a commission to study this history, document its ongoing consequences, and recommend repair. It is the legislative instrument that transforms recognition into obligation. We urge our neighbors to contact their legislators and ask them to vote YES. Freedom announced is not freedom delivered. Help make legislation the delivery.