Juneteenth is an important day in America’s history, not only for ancestors of enslaved people to celebrate emancipation, but as a reminder for the rest of us that it hasn’t always been about freedom and justice for all in this country…

and to warn us that unless we understand and own our country’s past injustices, we might get there again.

A date on a calendar is not enough to ensure we don’t. A “Happy Juneteenth” is not enough. 

Maybe the best way is to walk a mile in the shoes of those who’ve been there. Read or watch or visit places that tell their stories. Hear and understand. 

This book. This one in my picture. Let Us Descend, by Jesmyn Ward. The title is a line from Dante’s Inferno where Virgil becomes Dante’s tour guide through hell – and that is what this book will do for you. 

It will take you on a tour through an enslaved woman’s hell. You will inhabit the mind and body of Annis. You will feel her pain, her hunger, her suffering, her horrors. 

It’s hard reading. Brutal.

But imagine living it.

Juneteenth deserves to be recognized. But even more, it deserves to be understood.