June 14, 2025 ā¢ 45 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What if I told you freedom was declared but not
delivered?
That while fireworks werebursting in the sky, chains were
still clanking in the fields?
That June 19th didn't mark theend of slavery but the beginning
of a new kind of struggle?
Today, we're not just talkingabout emancipation.
We're confronting the stolentime, the generational trauma
(00:21):
and the sacred resilience thatlives in our blood.
This isn't just a holiday, it'sa soul reckoning.
This is Juneteenth Triggerwarning.
Today's episode containsdiscussions of slavery, systemic
racism, trauma and historicalviolence.
Listener, discretion is advised.
(00:41):
This conversation is designedto be healing, but we will not
water down the truth.
If you need a moment or feeloverwhelmed, give yourself
permission to pause and returnwhen you're ready.
Welcome to Life Points withRhonda, where real life meets
purpose, healing and deep truth.
I'm your host, rhonda, andtoday we're going there Not just
(01:03):
to celebrate Juneteenth, but tohonor the soul of it and to
talk about what this day reallymeans for us as Black people in
America.
So, whether you're driving,walking, resting or reclaiming
your time, I want to invite youinto this sacred space.
We're not just going to learn,we're going to feel Before we
dive in.
(01:23):
I'd love for you to take amoment and share this episode
with someone who needs it.
Subscribe to Life Points withRhonda on YouTube and all
streaming platforms and connectwith me on Instagram, facebook
and Patreon under Life Pointswith Rhonda.
Your support keeps this spacealive.
Freedom announced but notdelivered.
Freedom announced but notdelivered.
(01:45):
June 19, 1865.
A hot, heavy day in Galveston,texas.
Union soldiers rode in likethunder bringing news that
slavery had been abolished twoand a half years prior.
Let that sink in.
Two years of stolen time.
Two years of mothers stillhaving their babies ripped from
(02:06):
their arms.
Two years of black men stillbeing beaten in the fields while
their freedom was already law.
Two years of black womencooking, cleaning and enduring
abuse in homes.
They were no longer legallybound to.
No reparations, no apologies,just delayed truth and
calculated silence.
Juneteenth marks the day thelast known enslaved people heard
(02:30):
they were free.
But that day didn't bringfreedom itself.
There was no mass liberationparade, no check, no sanctuary,
just confusion and fear andquestions.
Imagine finding out that youwere legally free, but still
standing on the same plantationwith no land, no money and
(02:51):
nowhere to go.
The truth is, juneteenth didn'tend slavery.
It simply made it undeniable.
And here's the part they don'tteach in school.
Those enslavers knew.
They knew the war was over,they knew the proclamation had
been signed, and theydeliberately chose to withhold
that truth, to squeeze out everylast drop of unpaid labor from
(03:14):
our ancestors.
It wasn't an accident.
It was oppression withintention.
Juneteenth is not just acelebration.
It's a reckoning, a moment toconfront the bitter
contradiction of being declaredfree in a nation that still saw
us as property, still wrote usout of the Constitution, still
built its wealth on our backsand then gave us nothing but
(03:36):
trauma in return.
And yet we're still here.
Juneteenth is proof that evenwhen freedom is late, even when
justice is delayed, we carrywithin us the unyielding spirit
of those who refuse to be erased.
That is the heartbeat of thisday not fireworks, not corporate
ads, but a fire deep in ourbones that says we will not be
(03:59):
forgotten and we will not besilenced.
What was stolen?
The generational debt thathasn't been paid?
Freedom, when it finally came,didn't come with a check.
It didn't come with healing, itdidn't come with a plan.
It came with silence, delay andempty hands.
(04:19):
And to understand the fullmeaning of Juneteenth, we have
to talk honestly, brutallyhonestly, about what was taken,
because you cannot celebrateliberation without first
mourning the theft, and forBlack Americans, that theft is
layered, intentional and stillactive.
Let's start with the obviousthe physical Time was stolen,
(04:40):
not months, not years.
Generations, not months, notyears.
Generations Entire bloodlinesspent laboring under the hot sun
, sunrise to sunset, birthingchildren who would also be
enslaved, stripped of freedombefore they could speak.
We speak of slavery like it wasa distant chapter in a history
book, but the truth is this itlasted over 246 years.
(05:02):
That's 10 generations of unpaidlabor, 10 generations of lost
birthdays, broken families,whippings, chains and forced
silence.
That time was not just stolen,it was weaponized.
It was used to build the WhiteHouse, to cultivate cotton that
fueled the world economy, tocreate Wall Street, to pad Ivy
(05:24):
League endowments, to birthdynasties of wealth that still
rule American commerce today.
All while we, our people, werebranded like cattle, sold like
shoes and worked until thetendons in their hands gave out.
And when they finally said wewere free, we were given nothing
no land, no tools, no mentalhealth care, no trauma
(05:45):
processing, no reparations.
Let's pause here and let thistruth settle.
White families receivedreparations for the loss of
their slaves.
The slave owners werecompensated.
Black people, we werecompensated with homelessness,
with poverty, with violence,with more chains, just with a
(06:05):
different name.
So when people say slavery wasa long time ago and ask why
we're still talking about it, wemust remind them slavery
doesn't just live in memory, itlives in the system.
The theft of identity Beyondtime, something far more sacred
was stolen Our identity.
Enslavement wasn't justphysical, it was cultural
(06:29):
genocide.
Our names were changed, ourlanguages were erased, our
religions were demonized, ourspiritual practices were
outlawed.
Our very personhood waslegislated out of existence.
Imagine being born into a worldwhere everything that defines
you your name, your tongue, yourancestors, your rituals, your
(06:49):
songs is treated as filth,beaten out of you, buried in
fear For generations.
Our people couldn't speak theirmother tongues, couldn't honor
the Orisa or pour libations forEgungun, couldn't even keep the
drum.
But here's the miracle weremembered anyway, in whispers
(07:10):
in kitchen corners, in codedsongs, in braided hairstyles
that mapped escape routes.
We remembered who we were.
But we must not romanticizethat resilience, because what
was lost was immeasurable.
Centuries of cultural memory.
Philosophy, medicine andspiritual authority were
decimated in the name ofcivilizing us.
(07:31):
The African in us was labeledsavage, the power in us was
labeled a threat.
And we are still unlearningthat shame.
We are still reclaiming who wewere before they told us we were
less than human.
And that reclamation isspiritual labor, it is
resistance, it is generationalrestoration.
(07:56):
Perhaps one of the mostexcruciating things stolen
during slavery was the sanctityof family.
There is no true word inEnglish that captures the horror
of watching your child be soldoff to another state never to be
seen again, of watching yourwife be raped repeatedly,
knowing no law existed toprotect her, of seeing your
father lynched because he daredto speak with dignity.
(08:18):
Black families weredeliberately fragmented.
Marriage between enslavedpeople wasn't recognized.
Mothers were kept from theirchildren.
Hus between enslaved peoplewasn't recognized.
Mothers were kept from theirchildren.
Husbands were sold to breakspirits.
And the psychological residueof that violence, it, didn't
disappear in 1865.
To this day, black familiesface the highest rates of child
removal in the foster system.
To this day, mass incarcerationkeeps our men away from their
(08:42):
sons.
To this day, housing policies,welfare restrictions and racist
policing continue the mission ofseparating the Black household.
This is not coincidental.
It is deliberate design.
The destruction of the Blackfamily was a strategic move and
it worked for a while.
But like everything else we'vefaced, we've learned to hold
(09:03):
each other tighter, to recreatefamily from the ashes.
Still, the damage is real andJuneteenth demands that we name
it the Theft of Wealth.
When we talk about reparations,many folks think it's just about
back pay, but let me break thisdown clearly.
What was stolen wasn't justmoney, it was generational
(09:26):
wealth.
Our ancestors were denied theability to pass on anything
tangible to their children noland, no business, no education,
no inheritance.
Meanwhile, white families werestacking wealth for centuries
off of our labor.
When emancipation finally came,most Black families owned
nothing but the clothes on theirbacks.
(09:46):
Even when we tried to build,like in Tulsa, oklahoma or
Rosewood, florida, thosethriving Black towns were burned
to the ground, and thegovernment didn't just stand by.
In some cases it participated.
To this day, black families inAmerica hold one-tenth the
wealth of white families.
(10:06):
Not because we are lazy, notbecause we don't work hard, but
because the game has always beenrigged against us.
We were locked out of the GIBill, redlined out of home
ownership, denied business loans, paid less for the same work,
charged more for the sameservices, and when we finally
begin to rise, the system findsa new way to clip our wings.
(10:27):
Juneteenth is not just aboutremembering slavery.
It's about understanding thatthe economic impact of slavery
is still in play.
The theft of mental health wedon't talk enough about the
psychological toll of chattelslavery, about the trauma of
being born into a world whereyour black skin meant pain,
(10:48):
where your intelligence wasmocked, where your body was used
and discarded.
That kind of collective traumadoesn't disappear with a holiday
.
It gets passed down, encoded inthe nervous system, passed from
mother to daughter, father toson, from mother to daughter,
father to son.
It shows up in the way weflinch at sirens, the way we
(11:09):
hold our breath when ourchildren leave the house, the
way we overachieve, overgive andoverwork just to feel safe.
We carry grief that was nevergrieved.
We carry wounds that were nevertreated and for too long we
were told to be strong, to suckit up, to pray it away.
But strength without healing issurvival, not freedom.
Juneteenth is a portal, achance to say enough, enough
(11:34):
pretending we're okay, enoughdismissing therapy, enough
normalizing trauma.
We owe it to our ancestors andour descendants to heal, because
the work they started can onlybe completed when we are whole.
The Theft of Truth let's talkabout education.
How many of us learned the fulltruth about Juneteenth in
(11:56):
school?
How many of us knew theEmancipation Proclamation didn't
actually free all enslavedpeople, that Abraham Lincoln's
move was political, not moral,that the North still benefited
from slavery economically, thatTexas was intentionally used to
hide enslaved people as long aspossible?
How many textbooks dared totalk about slave breeding farms,
(12:16):
about the fact that some of thebiggest insurance companies and
Ivy League institutions werebuilt on slavery profits?
We are not ignorant.
We have been intentionallymiseducated.
Whitewashed history is anotherform of theft.
It denies us the tools tounderstand, our power to build
legacy, to demand justice.
That is why Juneteenth is notjust a cookout.
(12:39):
It is a classroom, it is analtar of truth and in that truth
we find clarity, we find fire,we find freedom, the ongoing
theft, what they still try totake.
Even now, in 2025, the thefthasn't stopped.
It just changed form.
(13:00):
They try to steal our votes,our voices, our likeness, our
genius, our rhythms, our slang,our magic, our joy.
We are the most copied peopleon the planet and yet the most
disrespected.
They want our culture but notour struggle, our style but not
our scars, our rhythm but notour rage.
(13:20):
Juneteenth forces us to say youcannot have our spirit without
our story.
We are not entertainment, weare not statistics.
We are not here to be tolerated.
We are here to thrive, to leadto love loudly and to live free,
not just legally butspiritually.
Post-slavery didn't meanpost-oppression.
(13:41):
They say the chains were brokenon June 19, 1865.
But if you listen closely, ifyou stand still and let the
silence speak, you'll hear themagain.
Not on ankles, not on wrists,but in policies, in prisons, in
poverty, in laws, in loopholes,in school districts and housing
(14:02):
deeds, in patrol cars andcourtrooms.
The chains didn't disappear,they just got smarter.
This is the truth thatJuneteenth forces us to confront
that while slavery was declaredillegal, the systems built to
uphold it never stopped working.
The birth of the Black Codeslegal slavery reimagined a Right
(14:27):
after the Civil War.
Southern states panicked, notbecause they had lost the war,
but because they had lost theirlabor force.
So they moved quickly, craftinga new set of laws to recreate
slavery by another name.
They called them the BlackCodes, and they were as brutal
as the whips that once crackedacross cotton fields.
These laws made it illegal forBlack people to be unemployed,
(14:49):
homeless, gathering in groups oreven walking on the wrong side
of the street in some towns.
Let that sink in.
After centuries of forced labor, we were now being criminalized
for not having jobs, jobs wewere never given the opportunity
to apply for.
It was a trap, a cruel,calculated trap, because if you
(15:09):
broke one of these laws, youwere arrested and fined, and if
you couldn't pay the fine andmost Black people couldn't you
were leased out to work.
Who leased you?
The same plantation owners whoonce enslaved you.
They called it convict leasing.
We call it what it was Slavery2.0.
Black men were rounded up forfabricated crimes and sold to
(15:32):
corporations, railroads andprivate farms to work in mines,
forests and fields no pay, nofreedom, no rights.
And this was sanctioned by thestate.
It was legal, encouraged,funded.
The 13th Amendment, theloophole that never closed.
Most people celebrate the 13thAmendment like it ended slavery,
(15:56):
but let's read it word for wordNeither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as apunishment for crime, shall
exist within the United States.
That phrase, except as apunishment for crime, shall
exist within the United States.
That phrase except as apunishment for crime is the most
dangerous loophole in Americanlaw, because it allowed slavery
to continue legally under theguise of criminal justice, and
(16:20):
from that loophole grew anentire system of oppression,
mass incarceration.
You see, once it became illegalto enslave someone openly, they
just criminalized blacknessitself.
Loitering became a crime,talking back became a crime,
looking at a white woman becamea crime, voting became nearly
impossible.
(16:40):
And once labeled a criminal, ablack man could be stripped of
his rights and leased to work.
Just like in the days beforeJuneteenth, jim Crow, apartheid,
with American branding the endof slavery, did not usher in
equality.
It simply made white supremacyput on a suit.
(17:00):
Enter Jim Crow, a system sodeeply evil.
It didn't just restrict rights,it attempted to destroy black
existence.
From the 1870s into the 1960s,this system dictated where we
could sit, where we could eat,where we could learn, who we
could marry and whatneighborhoods we could live in.
And let's be clear Jim Crow wasnot just Southern.
(17:23):
Redlining, discriminatorylending, school segregation and
housing covenants were alive andwell in the North too.
The difference was only anaccent, not intent.
During this era, lynchingsbecame spectacles.
Newspapers printed them, crowdsgathered for them, postcards
were made from the corpses, andyet no one was arrested.
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Law enforcement stood by.
The courts turned a blind eye.
The government did nothing.
Our ancestors didn't just fightfor civil rights, they fought
for the right to live.
Juneteenth cannot be separatedfrom the reality that freedom
was a facade for most of thecentury following emancipation.
Every system legal, political,social, economic was designed to
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keep us down without the chainsbeing visible.
The war on blacknessmasquerading as policy.
Fast forward to the 1960s.
The civil rights movementforced America to take off its
mask and for a moment, just amoment, it seemed like freedom
might finally be within reach.
But power does not relinquishitself quietly.
(18:30):
As soon as overt racism becameunpopular, covert strategies
took its place.
They called it the war on drugs, but what it really was was a
war on Black families.
Richard Nixon's own advisor,john Ehrlichman, later admitted
we knew we couldn't make itillegal to be either against the
war or black, but by gettingthe public to associate the
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hippies with marijuana andblacks with heroin, we could
arrest their leaders, raid theirhomes, break up their meetings.
Ronald Reagan doubled down,flooding black neighborhoods
with crack cocaine, whilesimultaneously sentencing black
people to decades in prison forpossession.
Meanwhile, white users ofpowder cocaine faced minor
consequences and thus began theexplosion of the
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prison-industrial complex, a neweconomy built on Black bodies
behind bars.
This wasn't about justice.
It was about replacement, a newsystem to control the labor,
the lives and the legacy ofBlack America, without the messy
optics of a plantationSchool-to-prison pipeline
grooming the next generation ofinmates.
(19:34):
Let's talk about the children.
Today, black students aresuspended and expelled at rates
three times higher than whitestudents for the same
infractions.
Police officers roam the hallsof predominantly black schools,
funneling students into ajustice system that sees them
not as children but as criminalsin waiting.
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From an early age, our babiesare told you're loud, you're
dangerous, you're difficult,you're a problem, and that
conditioning follows them fromschools to to the streets, to
the system.
This is not theoretical.
This is by design.
The same companies that profitfrom private prisons donate to
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politicians who vote for harshsentencing laws, underfund
education and cut mental healthresources.
This is not a broken system.
It is a well-oiled machine.
Policing and the Legacy of SlavePatrols.
The modern police force did notevolve from some neutral sense
of public safety.
(20:35):
Its roots lie in slave patrols,white men organized to capture
and punish runaway, enslavedAfricans.
Their mission To protect whiteproperty control.
Black bodies maintain theracial hierarchy and while the
uniforms have changed, theculture remains From Rodney King
to Breonna Taylor, from GeorgeFloyd to Tyre Nichols, from stop
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and frisk to broken windows.
The policing of black life hasbeen one long, unbroken chain.
We are more likely to be pulledover, more likely to be
searched, more likely to bearrested, more likely to be
killed.
And when we are killed, we arealso put on trial.
Juneteenth must be a time toname this reality, not to shock
the system, but to awaken thesoul.
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The very system that once heldthe whip now holds the badge.
And until that is fullyconfronted, the promise of
freedom remains unfulfilled.
The myth of progress whysymbolism isn't substance?
They'll point to Oprah, toObama, to the Oscars, to the
(21:42):
Juneteenth ice cream in thefreezer at Walmart.
They'll say, look, we've comeso far.
But progress isn't measured bysymbols, it's measured by
systems.
And here's the truth we stillface a racial wealth gap that
will take 228 years to close.
Black maternal mortality isthree times higher than that of
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white women.
Black men face the highest riskof police violence in the
developed world.
Black students still attendunderfunded schools and are less
likely to be offered advancedcoursework or counseling.
So, yes, we've made symbolicgains, but systems, they still
bleed us slowly.
This is not to say we arepowerless.
We are far from that.
(22:24):
Us slowly.
This is not to say we arepowerless.
We are far from that.
But the narrative that racismis mostly gone is one of the
most dangerous lies told inAmerica today.
Juneteenth cannot be separatedfrom the fact that the very
forces that once enslaved ussimply changed uniforms.
That's not pessimism, that'sprecision Joy as rebellion.
Why we celebrate anyway.
Precision Joy as rebellion.
(22:44):
Why we celebrate anyway.
They told us we had nothing tosmile about, told us we were too
angry, too loud, too proud, toobold.
They told us to forget the past, to be quiet, to be grateful.
We were free.
They told us celebration wasinappropriate.
But you know what?
We danced anyway, we laughedanyway, we gathered anyway.
(23:06):
And that, my beautiful people,is what Juneteenth is really
about, because, after centuriesof being silenced, our joy is a
revolutionary act.
The Red Table, more than a meal,a ritual of remembrance.
When we gather on Juneteenth,we bring more than plates, we
bring spirit, we bring story, webring survival.
(23:28):
The red food barbecue, redvelvet cake, watermelon,
hibiscus punch isn't justtradition, it's symbolism.
Red represents the blood shedby our ancestors, the blood that
watered fields, that lined theAtlantic, that fed the roots of
this country.
Every bite is a quiet offeringto those who came before.
(23:48):
Those ribs on the grill, analtar, that laughter over spades
and dominoes, a libation, thatbackyard jam session with
Frankie, beverly and Mazeplaying a praise song.
We do it because they couldn't,because for centuries our
ancestors weren't allowed togather, to celebrate, to rest,
(24:09):
to be human.
They risked beatings and deathfor moments of community.
And now we reclaim that spacein their honor.
Joy on Juneteenth isn't aboutpretending the pain didn't
happen.
It's about saying you didn'tbreak us.
Black joy is sacred.
Black joy doesn't exist inspite of pain.
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It exists because of it.
It is how we transmute paininto power, how we turn mourning
into music, how we turn absenceinto art.
You see it in the way we step,in the way we style our hair, in
the way we raise our kids, withrhythm and resistance.
It's not just cultural, it'scosmic Every dance move at a
(24:53):
Juneteenth block party.
Spiritual.
Every old school beat in theDJ's crate.
Spiritual.
Every child running barefootthrough the grass knowing
they're free to be black andloud and beautiful.
Spiritual.
They tried to outlaw ourhappiness, tried to criminalize
our style, tried to steal ourlaughter and call it
unprofessional, unserious, toomuch.
(25:14):
But we never stopped smiling,never stopped making magic from
scraps never stopped beingexcellent.
Our joy is not accidental.
It's ancestral memory in motion.
The music is the medicine.
From Negro spirituals to gospel, from blues to jazz, from soul
to hip-hop, our sound has alwaysbeen our sanctuary.
(25:37):
Juneteenth celebrations are fullof music, not as entertainment
but as liberation.
Technology.
Spirituals were coated withescape plans.
Blues told the truth when noone else would.
Jazz bent the rules of time andform.
Hip-hop documented our survivalwhen the media refused to, and
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every beat we've dropped hascarried the fingerprint of
freedom.
When we celebrate with sound,we're not just turning up, we're
tapping in.
Every Black artist who's everbeen told to tone it down is
represented at that Juneteenthspeaker system.
Every choir member who beltedWade in the Water with trembling
hands is heard in thoseharmonies.
Every enslaved ancestor whohummed in the cotton fields is
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amplified in the drumbeat.
They say music is universal,but when it's black it's a
language of liberation.
Why they fear our joy?
There's a reason they try tocontrol it, a reason they they
package it, sell it back to us,watered down.
A reason Black Joy isconstantly policed.
Because it is uncontainable,because it says you didn't win,
because it radiates a self-lovethat this world has tried to
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strip from us joy that refusesto be silenced is dangerous to
oppression.
That's why they banned the drum.
That's why they removed historyfrom textbooks.
That's why they removed historyfrom textbooks.
That's why they try to regulatewhat we wear, how we speak, how
we sing.
Because joy is power.
Joy is a memory they can't kill.
Joy is the proof that we stillcarry the divine.
(27:07):
Juneteenth Joy says we rememberthe pain, but we also remember
how to rise.
Our elders are the blueprint.
When we see elders atJuneteenth gatherings, those
unbothered grandmamas with theirfolding chairs, those uncles
two-stepping with a red cup inhand, we are witnessing legacy
(27:28):
personified.
They are walking archives.
They've lived throughsegregation, through the war on
drugs, through miseducation,through displacement, and they
still show up smiling, stillshow up dressed, still know
every step to the electric slide.
They didn't survive so we couldmoan.
(27:51):
They survived so we could move.
Honor them, listen to theirstories, put the phone down for
a second and watch them.
Their presence is a livingmuseum and when you see that
elder laugh with their full body, when you see them wipe a
joyful tear from their eye, youknow what you're witnessing
Freedom in real time.
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We celebrate because we can.
This world will give you everyreason to be bitter, every
reason to shut down.
But we celebrate because ourvery existence is the answer to
their violence.
We celebrate because we weren'tsupposed to be here.
Our language was supposed todie, our lineage was supposed to
end, our children were supposedto be statistics, our
(28:34):
brilliance was supposed to beburied, but we outlived it all
and we've turned every inheritedscar into a work of art.
We've built empires fromcorners, fashion from struggle,
soul, food from scraps, faithfrom fire.
So don't let anyone tell youJuneteenth is just a holiday.
It's a resurrection, a sacredannual remembrance that we are
(28:55):
not done.
Not done.
Building Not done, dreaming Notdone, dancing, reparations of
the soul, healing what thesystem never will.
They never came with the check,they never knocked on our doors
to say we're sorry.
They never passed the laws thatwould have made the healing
easier.
They built museums but neverbuilt the safety net.
(29:17):
They gave us a date on thecalendar but not the justice our
people bled for.
And so now we must askourselves what do we do with the
wound they refuse to close?
We begin the sacred work ofreparations, not just with money
but with the soul, becausewhile the system has failed us
time and time again.
(29:37):
We are still responsible forour own healing, not because it
is fair, not because it is easy,but because our ancestors
didn't survive centuries ofhorror for us to abandon
ourselves now.
Healing is not a luxury.
It's liberation.
For too long, black people havebeen told to be strong at the
(30:00):
expense of being whole.
We've been told that therapy isweakness, that showing pain is
shameful, that self-care isselfish, but these are lies
whispered by systems thatbenefit from our burnout.
The truth is this Healing isnot optional.
It is ancestral duty.
Our grandmothers held too muchpain in their bodies.
Our grandfathers carried toomuch silence in their throats.
(30:21):
Our parents pushed forward withshoulders heavy from inherited
trauma.
And now it's our time to saythis stops with me.
Every time we choose to rest,we rewrite the story.
Every time we choose therapy,we break a generational curse.
Every time we choose to rest,we rewrite the story.
Every time we choose therapy,we break a generational curse.
Every time we create boundaries, we tell our ancestors I hear
you, I'm finishing what youstarted.
(30:43):
Juneteenth isn't just a day tolook back.
It's a mirror asking are youtruly free?
And if the answer is no, thenit becomes the portal to begin
the journey.
The trauma we carry is real, andit's not ours alone.
(31:05):
We were born into grief.
Grief that wasn't ours but thatwrapped itself around our
spirits like a second skin.
Grief that showed up in thetrembling of our grandmother's
hands, in the fear behind ourfather's warnings, in the anger
we couldn't name as children, inthe anxiety we tried to pray
away but still felt in our chestevery time a police car slowed
down.
This trauma didn't begin withus, but it lives inside us.
(31:28):
It lives in our nervous systems, in our blood pressure, in our
hyper vigilance, in our deepmistrust of institutions.
It lives in our hesit systems,in our blood pressure, in our
hypervigilance, in our deepmistrust of institutions.
It lives in our hesitations toask for help, in our fear of
rest, in our belief that we haveto earn the right to breathe.
But what if I told you that youdo not have to carry all of
this alone anymore?
What if the greatest act ofrebellion is to put some of it
(31:49):
down?
Reparation begins with the body.
Our bodies have beenbattlegrounds Used, exploited,
ignored, hypersexualized,underprotected, overpoliced.
Our wombs were once breedinggrounds for empire.
Our backs were bent to buildnations, and yet our healing
(32:11):
often starts everywhere.
But the body, body's permissionto rest without guilt.
We must breathe deeply, notjust to survive but to claim
space.
We must touch our own skin withreverence, not shame.
We must drink water like it'sholy.
We must stretch, dance, move,not for performance, but for
(32:33):
presence.
When we listen to the body, wehear the whispers of the
ancestors saying you are stillhere.
That means you still have time.
We carry their DNA, yes, but wealso carry their dreams.
Mental health is not a dirtyword.
So many of us were raised topray instead of cry, to shout
(32:55):
instead of speak, to surviveinstead of feel, to keep it
moving.
But Juneteenth tells us thetruth Survival is not the same
as freedom.
Freedom is emotionalintelligence.
Freedom is not going numb whensomeone says I love you.
Freedom is not flinching whenyou see yourself in the mirror.
Freedom is not self-sabotagingyour blessings because your body
(33:16):
has been trained to expectsuffering.
If we are going to be whole, wehave to get real about the
mental health crisis in ourcommunity.
We need licensed blacktherapists.
We need community healingcircles.
We need safe spaces for grief.
We need more than just Sundaysermons.
We need somatic release,trauma-informed education and
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language to name our pain.
There is no shame in needinghelp.
The only shame is in pretendingyou don't.
Reclaiming rituals Our ancestorsgave us tools Before we were
enslaved.
We were spiritual scientists,we were ritual keepers, we were
medicine women, we were diviners, herbalists, midwives and
(34:01):
philosophers.
Our people had entire systemsof healing that were demonized,
outlawed and suppressed, butthey never truly died.
Now is the time to rememberthem.
Burning sage and palo santowithout intention is not healing
.
But sitting with your ancestors, lighting a candle and saying
their names out loud, that ishealing.
(34:21):
Pouring a libation withreverence, calling on your Ori,
offering prayer to the Orisa,meditating with sound, cleansing
with water these aretechnologies of liberation
passed down to us.
They are our reparations.
If we can reclaim everythingelse our fashion, our music, our
(34:42):
hair then we can reclaim ourrituals too.
Telling the truth is a form ofhealing.
We have been lied to over andover Lied to about our history,
lied to about our worth, lied toabout what it means to be
civilized.
L lied to about what it meansto be civilized, lied to about
(35:02):
what it means to be successful,lied to about who we are and
what we come from.
And those lies becameinternalized, became beliefs,
became identity.
But when we speak the truth, webegin to unravel the trauma.
When we tell our children thereal story of Juneteenth not the
watered down version in schoolbooks, but the sacred truth, we
tell our children the real storyof Juneteenth not the
watered-down version in schoolbooks, but the sacred truth we
(35:24):
begin to free them.
When we look at ourselves inthe mirror and say you are not
the pain they put you through,we begin to reprogram our
spirits.
Healing doesn't start withmedicine.
It starts with truth.
Freedom is a daily practice,not a destination.
The system may never write thecheck, the government may never
(35:46):
fully apologize, the media maynever fully center our truth.
And yet we do not have to waitfor that to begin our liberation
, because the most powerfulreparations are the ones we give
ourselves, when we choose tolove ourselves loudly, when we
choose to love ourselves loudly,when we choose to rest without
guilt, when we choose therapyover trauma bonding, when we
(36:07):
choose joy over performance,when we choose to heal, not just
cope.
Juneteenth gives us thepermission and the
responsibility to become theancestors we needed, reclaiming
our timeline, a future beyondsurvival.
They told us our story startedwith slavery.
They taught us history from thepoint of bondage.
They left out the greatness,the brilliance, the empires, the
(36:31):
mathematics, the medicine, thecosmologies, the temples, the
kings, the queens, the builders,the priestesses.
But let me say it clearly Ourtimeline does not begin in
chains, and if it didn't startthere, it sure as hell doesn't
have to end there.
Juneteenth is not just a lookback, it's a launch forward.
(36:52):
It's a sacred checkpoint, amoment where we ask what will
the next 400 years of Blackhistory look like?
Because, while they tried tosteal our past, we now have the
power to reclaim our future.
We were never meant to justsurvive.
Let's be honest, many of ushave inherited a mindset that
(37:13):
glorifies survival.
We know how to hustle, we knowhow to keep going even when our
backs are breaking.
We know how to make a dollarstretch, how to make meals from
nothing, how to make joy frompain.
But we were never meant to onlysurvive.
Survival is not freedom.
Survival is reaction.
Survival is the bare minimum,and what our ancestors dreamed
(37:35):
of wasn't survival, it wassovereignty.
It was waking up in a worldwhere we didn't have to prove we
belong.
It was being able to raiseBlack children who don't grow up
racing for pain.
It was freedom of choice ofdirection, of expression, of
timeline.
We honor them by expandingbeyond what they were allowed to
imagine.
(37:55):
Time has never been linear.
For us In the Western world,time moves like a straight line
forward rigid, cold.
But in African cosmology, inYoruba thought, in Black
ancestral wisdom, time iscircular.
Our ancestors are not behind us, they are around us.
(38:16):
The future is not a distantpoint.
It is a spiral that we shapewith every decision we make.
So when we talk about reclaimingthe timeline, we are talking
about stepping into our power asco-authors of the universe.
We are talking about no longerreacting to the system, but
rewriting the rules altogether.
Juneteenth is a portal, aspiritual doorway that asks what
(38:39):
will you plant, what will youbuild?
What legacy will you leavebehind?
Because our timeline is notwritten in ink.
It is written in intention,reimagining our institutions
from the ground up.
To reclaim our future, we muststop asking for seats at tables
that were never built for us.
We must build new rooms, neweconomies, new schools, new
(39:03):
languages of power.
What would it look like ifevery Black child learned
financial literacy and ancestralwisdom before age 10?
We created our own medicalcooperatives rooted in holistic,
african-centered healing.
Our communities pooledresources to buy back the block.
We controlled our own foodsystems, banks, tech platforms,
(39:24):
media networks and justicesystems.
This is not a fantasy.
This is what our ancestorsprayed for.
We cannot beg the oppressor toheal us.
We must create new blueprints,because we have the minds, we
have the skill, we have thedivine technology in our DNA.
We don't need permission to beexcellent, we need strategy.
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Education is the battlefield ofthe future.
If we don't teach our childrenwho they are, the world will
teach them who they are not.
Our children deserve more thanwatered-down history and
diversity day.
They deserve the truth.
They deserve to know aboutMansa Musa, queen Zinga, the
(40:06):
Dogon, the Maroons, marcusGarvey, asada Shakur, harriet
Tubman's prophetic visions,fannie Lou Hamer's fire, malcolm
X's discipline and thespiritual science of blackness
itself.
The classroom has always beenpolitical, because when you
(40:26):
control the mind, you controlthe destiny.
So let's be clear Reclaimingthe timeline means reclaiming
the curriculum.
We must raise children who knowthey descend from kings,
warriors, engineers, oracles andhealers.
Children who don't just want ajob, they want a legacy.
Children who know they areworthy, not because of what they
achieve, but because of whothey are.
We are not raising consumers,we are raising creators.
(40:50):
Culture is power.
Let's use it to lead.
Black culture has always ledthe world.
Our slang becomes globallanguage, our fashion becomes
the blueprint for style, ourmusic sets the tempo of the
planet, our struggles birth theblueprint for every other
movement, and yet we often don'town it, we don't benefit from
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it, we are copied, commodifiedand left behind.
So reclaiming the timelinemeans owning our brilliance,
protecting it, monetizing itwith integrity, sharing it in
ways that build us, not justeveryone else.
Let's be intentional with ourinfluence.
Let's stop selling our imagefor cheap while the world
(41:31):
profits from our pain.
Let's create platforms thatcenter our joy, our truth and
our power, without needingvalidation, because cultural
power is real power, and ourpower without needing validation
, because cultural power is realpower.
And we already have it.
Black economics the future is inour hands.
We spend over $1.6 trillionannually as a collective.
(41:52):
We are not poor.
We are misdirected, becausepoverty isn't just a lack of
money.
It's a lack of access,knowledge and systems that
prioritize collective wealth.
Imagine a future where weinvest in black-owned banks and
credit unions.
We build community land truststo stop gentrification, we
circulate the black dollar for30-plus days before it leaves
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our community, we own our owngrocery stores, schools,
transportation systems and mediaoutlets.
This isn't fantasy, it's math,it's will, it's focus.
Juneteenth should not just be aparty.
It should be a business summit.
It should be a reset, astrategy session, a moment where
we say never again will ourbrilliance build someone else's
(42:37):
empire.
We are the investment, we arethe ROI, reclaiming leadership,
redefining power.
We have enough influencers.
We need leaders, not just onstages, but in neighborhoods, in
homes, in schools, in business,in policy, in spirit.
(42:59):
Reclaiming the timeline meansreclaiming our voice in every
space.
That doesn't mean replicatingsystems of oppression and
blackface.
It means building leadershipgrounded in Iwapile good
character.
It means returning to Africanmodels of accountability,
community wisdom and balance.
We are not here to imitatepower.
(43:20):
We are here to transform it.
The future belongs to those whoknow how to listen deeply,
speak truthfully and act withcourage.
And we've been doing that sincethe first drumbeat, since the
first prayer on stone.
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Thank you, I'm going to make alittle Thank you, thank you.
What if I told you freedom was declared but not
delivered?
That while fireworks werebursting in the sky, chains were
still clanking in the fields?
That June 19th didn't mark theend of slavery but the beginning
of a new kind of struggle?
Today, we're not just talkingabout emancipation.
We're confronting the stolentime, the generational trauma
(00:21):
and the sacred resilience thatlives in our blood.
This isn't just a holiday, it'sa soul reckoning.
This is Juneteenth Triggerwarning.
Today's episode containsdiscussions of slavery, systemic
racism, trauma and historicalviolence.
Listener, discretion is advised.
(00:41):
This conversation is designedto be healing, but we will not
water down the truth.
If you need a moment or feeloverwhelmed, give yourself
permission to pause and returnwhen you're ready.
Welcome to Life Points withRhonda, where real life meets
purpose, healing and deep truth.
I'm your host, rhonda, andtoday we're going there Not just
(01:03):
to celebrate Juneteenth, but tohonor the soul of it and to
talk about what this day reallymeans for us as Black people in
America.
So, whether you're driving,walking, resting or reclaiming
your time, I want to invite youinto this sacred space.
We're not just going to learn,we're going to feel Before we
dive in.
(01:23):
I'd love for you to take amoment and share this episode
with someone who needs it.
Subscribe to Life Points withRhonda on YouTube and all
streaming platforms and connectwith me on Instagram, facebook
and Patreon under Life Pointswith Rhonda.
Your support keeps this spacealive.
Freedom announced but notdelivered.
Freedom announced but notdelivered.
(01:45):
June 19, 1865.
A hot, heavy day in Galveston,texas.
Union soldiers rode in likethunder bringing news that
slavery had been abolished twoand a half years prior.
Let that sink in.
Two years of stolen time.
Two years of mothers stillhaving their babies ripped from
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their arms.
Two years of black men stillbeing beaten in the fields while
their freedom was already law.
Two years of black womencooking, cleaning and enduring
abuse in homes.
They were no longer legallybound to.
No reparations, no apologies,just delayed truth and
calculated silence.
Juneteenth marks the day thelast known enslaved people heard
(02:30):
they were free.
But that day didn't bringfreedom itself.
There was no mass liberationparade, no check, no sanctuary,
just confusion and fear andquestions.
Imagine finding out that youwere legally free, but still
standing on the same plantationwith no land, no money and
(02:51):
nowhere to go.
The truth is, juneteenth didn'tend slavery.
It simply made it undeniable.
And here's the part they don'tteach in school.
Those enslavers knew.
They knew the war was over,they knew the proclamation had
been signed, and theydeliberately chose to withhold
that truth, to squeeze out everylast drop of unpaid labor from
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our ancestors.
It wasn't an accident.
It was oppression withintention.
Juneteenth is not just acelebration.
It's a reckoning, a moment toconfront the bitter
contradiction of being declaredfree in a nation that still saw
us as property, still wrote usout of the Constitution, still
built its wealth on our backsand then gave us nothing but
(03:36):
trauma in return.
And yet we're still here.
Juneteenth is proof that evenwhen freedom is late, even when
justice is delayed, we carrywithin us the unyielding spirit
of those who refuse to be erased.
That is the heartbeat of thisday not fireworks, not corporate
ads, but a fire deep in ourbones that says we will not be
(03:59):
forgotten and we will not besilenced.
What was stolen?
The generational debt thathasn't been paid?
Freedom, when it finally came,didn't come with a check.
It didn't come with healing, itdidn't come with a plan.
It came with silence, delay andempty hands.
(04:19):
And to understand the fullmeaning of Juneteenth, we have
to talk honestly, brutallyhonestly, about what was taken,
because you cannot celebrateliberation without first
mourning the theft, and forBlack Americans, that theft is
layered, intentional and stillactive.
Let's start with the obviousthe physical Time was stolen,
(04:40):
not months, not years.
Generations, not months, notyears.
Generations Entire bloodlinesspent laboring under the hot sun
, sunrise to sunset, birthingchildren who would also be
enslaved, stripped of freedombefore they could speak.
We speak of slavery like it wasa distant chapter in a history
book, but the truth is this itlasted over 246 years.
(05:02):
That's 10 generations of unpaidlabor, 10 generations of lost
birthdays, broken families,whippings, chains and forced
silence.
That time was not just stolen,it was weaponized.
It was used to build the WhiteHouse, to cultivate cotton that
fueled the world economy, tocreate Wall Street, to pad Ivy
(05:24):
League endowments, to birthdynasties of wealth that still
rule American commerce today.
All while we, our people, werebranded like cattle, sold like
shoes and worked until thetendons in their hands gave out.
And when they finally said wewere free, we were given nothing
no land, no tools, no mentalhealth care, no trauma
(05:45):
processing, no reparations.
Let's pause here and let thistruth settle.
White families receivedreparations for the loss of
their slaves.
The slave owners werecompensated.
Black people, we werecompensated with homelessness,
with poverty, with violence,with more chains, just with a
(06:05):
different name.
So when people say slavery wasa long time ago and ask why
we're still talking about it, wemust remind them slavery
doesn't just live in memory, itlives in the system.
The theft of identity Beyondtime, something far more sacred
was stolen Our identity.
Enslavement wasn't justphysical, it was cultural
(06:29):
genocide.
Our names were changed, ourlanguages were erased, our
religions were demonized, ourspiritual practices were
outlawed.
Our very personhood waslegislated out of existence.
Imagine being born into a worldwhere everything that defines
you your name, your tongue, yourancestors, your rituals, your
(06:49):
songs is treated as filth,beaten out of you, buried in
fear For generations.
Our people couldn't speak theirmother tongues, couldn't honor
the Orisa or pour libations forEgungun, couldn't even keep the
drum.
But here's the miracle weremembered anyway, in whispers
(07:10):
in kitchen corners, in codedsongs, in braided hairstyles
that mapped escape routes.
We remembered who we were.
But we must not romanticizethat resilience, because what
was lost was immeasurable.
Centuries of cultural memory.
Philosophy, medicine andspiritual authority were
decimated in the name ofcivilizing us.
(07:31):
The African in us was labeledsavage, the power in us was
labeled a threat.
And we are still unlearningthat shame.
We are still reclaiming who wewere before they told us we were
less than human.
And that reclamation isspiritual labor, it is
resistance, it is generationalrestoration.
(07:56):
Perhaps one of the mostexcruciating things stolen
during slavery was the sanctityof family.
There is no true word inEnglish that captures the horror
of watching your child be soldoff to another state never to be
seen again, of watching yourwife be raped repeatedly,
knowing no law existed toprotect her, of seeing your
father lynched because he daredto speak with dignity.
(08:18):
Black families weredeliberately fragmented.
Marriage between enslavedpeople wasn't recognized.
Mothers were kept from theirchildren.
Hus between enslaved peoplewasn't recognized.
Mothers were kept from theirchildren.
Husbands were sold to breakspirits.
And the psychological residueof that violence, it, didn't
disappear in 1865.
To this day, black familiesface the highest rates of child
removal in the foster system.
To this day, mass incarcerationkeeps our men away from their
(08:42):
sons.
To this day, housing policies,welfare restrictions and racist
policing continue the mission ofseparating the Black household.
This is not coincidental.
It is deliberate design.
The destruction of the Blackfamily was a strategic move and
it worked for a while.
But like everything else we'vefaced, we've learned to hold
(09:03):
each other tighter, to recreatefamily from the ashes.
Still, the damage is real andJuneteenth demands that we name
it the Theft of Wealth.
When we talk about reparations,many folks think it's just about
back pay, but let me break thisdown clearly.
What was stolen wasn't justmoney, it was generational
(09:26):
wealth.
Our ancestors were denied theability to pass on anything
tangible to their children noland, no business, no education,
no inheritance.
Meanwhile, white families werestacking wealth for centuries
off of our labor.
When emancipation finally came,most Black families owned
nothing but the clothes on theirbacks.
(09:46):
Even when we tried to build,like in Tulsa, oklahoma or
Rosewood, florida, thosethriving Black towns were burned
to the ground, and thegovernment didn't just stand by.
In some cases it participated.
To this day, black families inAmerica hold one-tenth the
wealth of white families.
(10:06):
Not because we are lazy, notbecause we don't work hard, but
because the game has always beenrigged against us.
We were locked out of the GIBill, redlined out of home
ownership, denied business loans, paid less for the same work,
charged more for the sameservices, and when we finally
begin to rise, the system findsa new way to clip our wings.
(10:27):
Juneteenth is not just aboutremembering slavery.
It's about understanding thatthe economic impact of slavery
is still in play.
The theft of mental health wedon't talk enough about the
psychological toll of chattelslavery, about the trauma of
being born into a world whereyour black skin meant pain,
(10:48):
where your intelligence wasmocked, where your body was used
and discarded.
That kind of collective traumadoesn't disappear with a holiday
.
It gets passed down, encoded inthe nervous system, passed from
mother to daughter, father toson, from mother to daughter,
father to son.
It shows up in the way weflinch at sirens, the way we
(11:09):
hold our breath when ourchildren leave the house, the
way we overachieve, overgive andoverwork just to feel safe.
We carry grief that was nevergrieved.
We carry wounds that were nevertreated and for too long we
were told to be strong, to suckit up, to pray it away.
But strength without healing issurvival, not freedom.
Juneteenth is a portal, achance to say enough, enough
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pretending we're okay, enoughdismissing therapy, enough
normalizing trauma.
We owe it to our ancestors andour descendants to heal, because
the work they started can onlybe completed when we are whole.
The Theft of Truth let's talkabout education.
How many of us learned the fulltruth about Juneteenth in
(11:56):
school?
How many of us knew theEmancipation Proclamation didn't
actually free all enslavedpeople, that Abraham Lincoln's
move was political, not moral,that the North still benefited
from slavery economically, thatTexas was intentionally used to
hide enslaved people as long aspossible?
How many textbooks dared totalk about slave breeding farms,
(12:16):
about the fact that some of thebiggest insurance companies and
Ivy League institutions werebuilt on slavery profits?
We are not ignorant.
We have been intentionallymiseducated.
Whitewashed history is anotherform of theft.
It denies us the tools tounderstand, our power to build
legacy, to demand justice.
That is why Juneteenth is notjust a cookout.
(12:39):
It is a classroom, it is analtar of truth and in that truth
we find clarity, we find fire,we find freedom, the ongoing
theft, what they still try totake.
Even now, in 2025, the thefthasn't stopped.
It just changed form.
(13:00):
They try to steal our votes,our voices, our likeness, our
genius, our rhythms, our slang,our magic, our joy.
We are the most copied peopleon the planet and yet the most
disrespected.
They want our culture but notour struggle, our style but not
our scars, our rhythm but notour rage.
(13:20):
Juneteenth forces us to say youcannot have our spirit without
our story.
We are not entertainment, weare not statistics.
We are not here to be tolerated.
We are here to thrive, to leadto love loudly and to live free,
not just legally butspiritually.
Post-slavery didn't meanpost-oppression.
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They say the chains were brokenon June 19, 1865.
But if you listen closely, ifyou stand still and let the
silence speak, you'll hear themagain.
Not on ankles, not on wrists,but in policies, in prisons, in
poverty, in laws, in loopholes,in school districts and housing
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deeds, in patrol cars andcourtrooms.
The chains didn't disappear,they just got smarter.
This is the truth thatJuneteenth forces us to confront
that while slavery was declaredillegal, the systems built to
uphold it never stopped working.
The birth of the Black Codeslegal slavery reimagined a Right
(14:27):
after the Civil War.
Southern states panicked, notbecause they had lost the war,
but because they had lost theirlabor force.
So they moved quickly, craftinga new set of laws to recreate
slavery by another name.
They called them the BlackCodes, and they were as brutal
as the whips that once crackedacross cotton fields.
These laws made it illegal forBlack people to be unemployed,
(14:49):
homeless, gathering in groups oreven walking on the wrong side
of the street in some towns.
Let that sink in.
After centuries of forced labor, we were now being criminalized
for not having jobs, jobs wewere never given the opportunity
to apply for.
It was a trap, a cruel,calculated trap, because if you
(15:09):
broke one of these laws, youwere arrested and fined, and if
you couldn't pay the fine andmost Black people couldn't you
were leased out to work.
Who leased you?
The same plantation owners whoonce enslaved you.
They called it convict leasing.
We call it what it was Slavery2.0.
Black men were rounded up forfabricated crimes and sold to
(15:32):
corporations, railroads andprivate farms to work in mines,
forests and fields no pay, nofreedom, no rights.
And this was sanctioned by thestate.
It was legal, encouraged,funded.
The 13th Amendment, theloophole that never closed.
Most people celebrate the 13thAmendment like it ended slavery,
(15:56):
but let's read it word for wordNeither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as apunishment for crime, shall
exist within the United States.
That phrase, except as apunishment for crime, shall
exist within the United States.
That phrase except as apunishment for crime is the most
dangerous loophole in Americanlaw, because it allowed slavery
to continue legally under theguise of criminal justice, and
(16:20):
from that loophole grew anentire system of oppression,
mass incarceration.
You see, once it became illegalto enslave someone openly, they
just criminalized blacknessitself.
Loitering became a crime,talking back became a crime,
looking at a white woman becamea crime, voting became nearly
impossible.
(16:40):
And once labeled a criminal, ablack man could be stripped of
his rights and leased to work.
Just like in the days beforeJuneteenth, jim Crow, apartheid,
with American branding the endof slavery, did not usher in
equality.
It simply made white supremacyput on a suit.
(17:00):
Enter Jim Crow, a system sodeeply evil.
It didn't just restrict rights,it attempted to destroy black
existence.
From the 1870s into the 1960s,this system dictated where we
could sit, where we could eat,where we could learn, who we
could marry and whatneighborhoods we could live in.
And let's be clear Jim Crow wasnot just Southern.
(17:23):
Redlining, discriminatorylending, school segregation and
housing covenants were alive andwell in the North too.
The difference was only anaccent, not intent.
During this era, lynchingsbecame spectacles.
Newspapers printed them, crowdsgathered for them, postcards
were made from the corpses, andyet no one was arrested.
(17:43):
Law enforcement stood by.
The courts turned a blind eye.
The government did nothing.
Our ancestors didn't just fightfor civil rights, they fought
for the right to live.
Juneteenth cannot be separatedfrom the reality that freedom
was a facade for most of thecentury following emancipation.
Every system legal, political,social, economic was designed to
(18:06):
keep us down without the chainsbeing visible.
The war on blacknessmasquerading as policy.
Fast forward to the 1960s.
The civil rights movementforced America to take off its
mask and for a moment, just amoment, it seemed like freedom
might finally be within reach.
But power does not relinquishitself quietly.
(18:30):
As soon as overt racism becameunpopular, covert strategies
took its place.
They called it the war on drugs, but what it really was was a
war on Black families.
Richard Nixon's own advisor,john Ehrlichman, later admitted
we knew we couldn't make itillegal to be either against the
war or black, but by gettingthe public to associate the
(18:50):
hippies with marijuana andblacks with heroin, we could
arrest their leaders, raid theirhomes, break up their meetings.
Ronald Reagan doubled down,flooding black neighborhoods
with crack cocaine, whilesimultaneously sentencing black
people to decades in prison forpossession.
Meanwhile, white users ofpowder cocaine faced minor
consequences and thus began theexplosion of the
(19:13):
prison-industrial complex, a neweconomy built on Black bodies
behind bars.
This wasn't about justice.
It was about replacement, a newsystem to control the labor,
the lives and the legacy ofBlack America, without the messy
optics of a plantationSchool-to-prison pipeline
grooming the next generation ofinmates.
(19:34):
Let's talk about the children.
Today, black students aresuspended and expelled at rates
three times higher than whitestudents for the same
infractions.
Police officers roam the hallsof predominantly black schools,
funneling students into ajustice system that sees them
not as children but as criminalsin waiting.
(19:54):
From an early age, our babiesare told you're loud, you're
dangerous, you're difficult,you're a problem, and that
conditioning follows them fromschools to to the streets, to
the system.
This is not theoretical.
This is by design.
The same companies that profitfrom private prisons donate to
(20:15):
politicians who vote for harshsentencing laws, underfund
education and cut mental healthresources.
This is not a broken system.
It is a well-oiled machine.
Policing and the Legacy of SlavePatrols.
The modern police force did notevolve from some neutral sense
of public safety.
(20:35):
Its roots lie in slave patrols,white men organized to capture
and punish runaway, enslavedAfricans.
Their mission To protect whiteproperty control.
Black bodies maintain theracial hierarchy and while the
uniforms have changed, theculture remains From Rodney King
to Breonna Taylor, from GeorgeFloyd to Tyre Nichols, from stop
(20:58):
and frisk to broken windows.
The policing of black life hasbeen one long, unbroken chain.
We are more likely to be pulledover, more likely to be
searched, more likely to bearrested, more likely to be
killed.
And when we are killed, we arealso put on trial.
Juneteenth must be a time toname this reality, not to shock
the system, but to awaken thesoul.
(21:20):
The very system that once heldthe whip now holds the badge.
And until that is fullyconfronted, the promise of
freedom remains unfulfilled.
The myth of progress whysymbolism isn't substance?
They'll point to Oprah, toObama, to the Oscars, to the
(21:42):
Juneteenth ice cream in thefreezer at Walmart.
They'll say, look, we've comeso far.
But progress isn't measured bysymbols, it's measured by
systems.
And here's the truth we stillface a racial wealth gap that
will take 228 years to close.
Black maternal mortality isthree times higher than that of
(22:03):
white women.
Black men face the highest riskof police violence in the
developed world.
Black students still attendunderfunded schools and are less
likely to be offered advancedcoursework or counseling.
So, yes, we've made symbolicgains, but systems, they still
bleed us slowly.
This is not to say we arepowerless.
We are far from that.
(22:24):
Us slowly.
This is not to say we arepowerless.
We are far from that.
But the narrative that racismis mostly gone is one of the
most dangerous lies told inAmerica today.
Juneteenth cannot be separatedfrom the fact that the very
forces that once enslaved ussimply changed uniforms.
That's not pessimism, that'sprecision Joy as rebellion.
Why we celebrate anyway.
Precision Joy as rebellion.
(22:44):
Why we celebrate anyway.
They told us we had nothing tosmile about, told us we were too
angry, too loud, too proud, toobold.
They told us to forget the past, to be quiet, to be grateful.
We were free.
They told us celebration wasinappropriate.
But you know what?
We danced anyway, we laughedanyway, we gathered anyway.
(23:06):
And that, my beautiful people,is what Juneteenth is really
about, because, after centuriesof being silenced, our joy is a
revolutionary act.
The Red Table, more than a meal,a ritual of remembrance.
When we gather on Juneteenth,we bring more than plates, we
bring spirit, we bring story, webring survival.
(23:28):
The red food barbecue, redvelvet cake, watermelon,
hibiscus punch isn't justtradition, it's symbolism.
Red represents the blood shedby our ancestors, the blood that
watered fields, that lined theAtlantic, that fed the roots of
this country.
Every bite is a quiet offeringto those who came before.
(23:48):
Those ribs on the grill, analtar, that laughter over spades
and dominoes, a libation, thatbackyard jam session with
Frankie, beverly and Mazeplaying a praise song.
We do it because they couldn't,because for centuries our
ancestors weren't allowed togather, to celebrate, to rest,
(24:09):
to be human.
They risked beatings and deathfor moments of community.
And now we reclaim that spacein their honor.
Joy on Juneteenth isn't aboutpretending the pain didn't
happen.
It's about saying you didn'tbreak us.
Black joy is sacred.
Black joy doesn't exist inspite of pain.
(24:32):
It exists because of it.
It is how we transmute paininto power, how we turn mourning
into music, how we turn absenceinto art.
You see it in the way we step,in the way we style our hair, in
the way we raise our kids, withrhythm and resistance.
It's not just cultural, it'scosmic Every dance move at a
(24:53):
Juneteenth block party.
Spiritual.
Every old school beat in theDJ's crate.
Spiritual.
Every child running barefootthrough the grass knowing
they're free to be black andloud and beautiful.
Spiritual.
They tried to outlaw ourhappiness, tried to criminalize
our style, tried to steal ourlaughter and call it
unprofessional, unserious, toomuch.
(25:14):
But we never stopped smiling,never stopped making magic from
scraps never stopped beingexcellent.
Our joy is not accidental.
It's ancestral memory in motion.
The music is the medicine.
From Negro spirituals to gospel, from blues to jazz, from soul
to hip-hop, our sound has alwaysbeen our sanctuary.
(25:37):
Juneteenth celebrations are fullof music, not as entertainment
but as liberation.
Technology.
Spirituals were coated withescape plans.
Blues told the truth when noone else would.
Jazz bent the rules of time andform.
Hip-hop documented our survivalwhen the media refused to, and
(25:59):
every beat we've dropped hascarried the fingerprint of
freedom.
When we celebrate with sound,we're not just turning up, we're
tapping in.
Every Black artist who's everbeen told to tone it down is
represented at that Juneteenthspeaker system.
Every choir member who beltedWade in the Water with trembling
hands is heard in thoseharmonies.
Every enslaved ancestor whohummed in the cotton fields is
(26:22):
amplified in the drumbeat.
They say music is universal,but when it's black it's a
language of liberation.
Why they fear our joy?
There's a reason they try tocontrol it, a reason they they
package it, sell it back to us,watered down.
A reason Black Joy isconstantly policed.
Because it is uncontainable,because it says you didn't win,
because it radiates a self-lovethat this world has tried to
(26:45):
strip from us joy that refusesto be silenced is dangerous to
oppression.
That's why they banned the drum.
That's why they removed historyfrom textbooks.
That's why they removed historyfrom textbooks.
That's why they try to regulatewhat we wear, how we speak, how
we sing.
Because joy is power.
Joy is a memory they can't kill.
Joy is the proof that we stillcarry the divine.
(27:07):
Juneteenth Joy says we rememberthe pain, but we also remember
how to rise.
Our elders are the blueprint.
When we see elders atJuneteenth gatherings, those
unbothered grandmamas with theirfolding chairs, those uncles
two-stepping with a red cup inhand, we are witnessing legacy
(27:28):
personified.
They are walking archives.
They've lived throughsegregation, through the war on
drugs, through miseducation,through displacement, and they
still show up smiling, stillshow up dressed, still know
every step to the electric slide.
They didn't survive so we couldmoan.
(27:51):
They survived so we could move.
Honor them, listen to theirstories, put the phone down for
a second and watch them.
Their presence is a livingmuseum and when you see that
elder laugh with their full body, when you see them wipe a
joyful tear from their eye, youknow what you're witnessing
Freedom in real time.
(28:11):
We celebrate because we can.
This world will give you everyreason to be bitter, every
reason to shut down.
But we celebrate because ourvery existence is the answer to
their violence.
We celebrate because we weren'tsupposed to be here.
Our language was supposed todie, our lineage was supposed to
end, our children were supposedto be statistics, our
(28:34):
brilliance was supposed to beburied, but we outlived it all
and we've turned every inheritedscar into a work of art.
We've built empires fromcorners, fashion from struggle,
soul, food from scraps, faithfrom fire.
So don't let anyone tell youJuneteenth is just a holiday.
It's a resurrection, a sacredannual remembrance that we are
(28:55):
not done.
Not done.
Building Not done, dreaming Notdone, dancing, reparations of
the soul, healing what thesystem never will.
They never came with the check,they never knocked on our doors
to say we're sorry.
They never passed the laws thatwould have made the healing
easier.
They built museums but neverbuilt the safety net.
(29:17):
They gave us a date on thecalendar but not the justice our
people bled for.
And so now we must askourselves what do we do with the
wound they refuse to close?
We begin the sacred work ofreparations, not just with money
but with the soul, becausewhile the system has failed us
time and time again.
(29:37):
We are still responsible forour own healing, not because it
is fair, not because it is easy,but because our ancestors
didn't survive centuries ofhorror for us to abandon
ourselves now.
Healing is not a luxury.
It's liberation.
For too long, black people havebeen told to be strong at the
(30:00):
expense of being whole.
We've been told that therapy isweakness, that showing pain is
shameful, that self-care isselfish, but these are lies
whispered by systems thatbenefit from our burnout.
The truth is this Healing isnot optional.
It is ancestral duty.
Our grandmothers held too muchpain in their bodies.
Our grandfathers carried toomuch silence in their throats.
(30:21):
Our parents pushed forward withshoulders heavy from inherited
trauma.
And now it's our time to saythis stops with me.
Every time we choose to rest,we rewrite the story.
Every time we choose therapy,we break a generational curse.
Every time we choose to rest,we rewrite the story.
Every time we choose therapy,we break a generational curse.
Every time we create boundaries, we tell our ancestors I hear
you, I'm finishing what youstarted.
(30:43):
Juneteenth isn't just a day tolook back.
It's a mirror asking are youtruly free?
And if the answer is no, thenit becomes the portal to begin
the journey.
The trauma we carry is real, andit's not ours alone.
(31:05):
We were born into grief.
Grief that wasn't ours but thatwrapped itself around our
spirits like a second skin.
Grief that showed up in thetrembling of our grandmother's
hands, in the fear behind ourfather's warnings, in the anger
we couldn't name as children, inthe anxiety we tried to pray
away but still felt in our chestevery time a police car slowed
down.
This trauma didn't begin withus, but it lives inside us.
(31:28):
It lives in our nervous systems, in our blood pressure, in our
hyper vigilance, in our deepmistrust of institutions.
It lives in our hesit systems,in our blood pressure, in our
hypervigilance, in our deepmistrust of institutions.
It lives in our hesitations toask for help, in our fear of
rest, in our belief that we haveto earn the right to breathe.
But what if I told you that youdo not have to carry all of
this alone anymore?
What if the greatest act ofrebellion is to put some of it
(31:49):
down?
Reparation begins with the body.
Our bodies have beenbattlegrounds Used, exploited,
ignored, hypersexualized,underprotected, overpoliced.
Our wombs were once breedinggrounds for empire.
Our backs were bent to buildnations, and yet our healing
(32:11):
often starts everywhere.
But the body, body's permissionto rest without guilt.
We must breathe deeply, notjust to survive but to claim
space.
We must touch our own skin withreverence, not shame.
We must drink water like it'sholy.
We must stretch, dance, move,not for performance, but for
(32:33):
presence.
When we listen to the body, wehear the whispers of the
ancestors saying you are stillhere.
That means you still have time.
We carry their DNA, yes, but wealso carry their dreams.
Mental health is not a dirtyword.
So many of us were raised topray instead of cry, to shout
(32:55):
instead of speak, to surviveinstead of feel, to keep it
moving.
But Juneteenth tells us thetruth Survival is not the same
as freedom.
Freedom is emotionalintelligence.
Freedom is not going numb whensomeone says I love you.
Freedom is not flinching whenyou see yourself in the mirror.
Freedom is not self-sabotagingyour blessings because your body
(33:16):
has been trained to expectsuffering.
If we are going to be whole, wehave to get real about the
mental health crisis in ourcommunity.
We need licensed blacktherapists.
We need community healingcircles.
We need safe spaces for grief.
We need more than just Sundaysermons.
We need somatic release,trauma-informed education and
(33:37):
language to name our pain.
There is no shame in needinghelp.
The only shame is in pretendingyou don't.
Reclaiming rituals Our ancestorsgave us tools Before we were
enslaved.
We were spiritual scientists,we were ritual keepers, we were
medicine women, we were diviners, herbalists, midwives and
(34:01):
philosophers.
Our people had entire systemsof healing that were demonized,
outlawed and suppressed, butthey never truly died.
Now is the time to rememberthem.
Burning sage and palo santowithout intention is not healing
.
But sitting with your ancestors, lighting a candle and saying
their names out loud, that ishealing.
(34:21):
Pouring a libation withreverence, calling on your Ori,
offering prayer to the Orisa,meditating with sound, cleansing
with water these aretechnologies of liberation
passed down to us.
They are our reparations.
If we can reclaim everythingelse our fashion, our music, our
(34:42):
hair then we can reclaim ourrituals too.
Telling the truth is a form ofhealing.
We have been lied to over andover Lied to about our history,
lied to about our worth, lied toabout what it means to be
civilized.
L lied to about what it meansto be civilized, lied to about
(35:02):
what it means to be successful,lied to about who we are and
what we come from.
And those lies becameinternalized, became beliefs,
became identity.
But when we speak the truth, webegin to unravel the trauma.
When we tell our children thereal story of Juneteenth not the
watered down version in schoolbooks, but the sacred truth, we
tell our children the real storyof Juneteenth not the
watered-down version in schoolbooks, but the sacred truth we
(35:24):
begin to free them.
When we look at ourselves inthe mirror and say you are not
the pain they put you through,we begin to reprogram our
spirits.
Healing doesn't start withmedicine.
It starts with truth.
Freedom is a daily practice,not a destination.
The system may never write thecheck, the government may never
(35:46):
fully apologize, the media maynever fully center our truth.
And yet we do not have to waitfor that to begin our liberation
, because the most powerfulreparations are the ones we give
ourselves, when we choose tolove ourselves loudly, when we
choose to love ourselves loudly,when we choose to rest without
guilt, when we choose therapyover trauma bonding, when we
(36:07):
choose joy over performance,when we choose to heal, not just
cope.
Juneteenth gives us thepermission and the
responsibility to become theancestors we needed, reclaiming
our timeline, a future beyondsurvival.
They told us our story startedwith slavery.
They taught us history from thepoint of bondage.
They left out the greatness,the brilliance, the empires, the
(36:31):
mathematics, the medicine, thecosmologies, the temples, the
kings, the queens, the builders,the priestesses.
But let me say it clearly Ourtimeline does not begin in
chains, and if it didn't startthere, it sure as hell doesn't
have to end there.
Juneteenth is not just a lookback, it's a launch forward.
(36:52):
It's a sacred checkpoint, amoment where we ask what will
the next 400 years of Blackhistory look like?
Because, while they tried tosteal our past, we now have the
power to reclaim our future.
We were never meant to justsurvive.
Let's be honest, many of ushave inherited a mindset that
(37:13):
glorifies survival.
We know how to hustle, we knowhow to keep going even when our
backs are breaking.
We know how to make a dollarstretch, how to make meals from
nothing, how to make joy frompain.
But we were never meant to onlysurvive.
Survival is not freedom.
Survival is reaction.
Survival is the bare minimum,and what our ancestors dreamed
(37:35):
of wasn't survival, it wassovereignty.
It was waking up in a worldwhere we didn't have to prove we
belong.
It was being able to raiseBlack children who don't grow up
racing for pain.
It was freedom of choice ofdirection, of expression, of
timeline.
We honor them by expandingbeyond what they were allowed to
imagine.
(37:55):
Time has never been linear.
For us In the Western world,time moves like a straight line
forward rigid, cold.
But in African cosmology, inYoruba thought, in Black
ancestral wisdom, time iscircular.
Our ancestors are not behind us, they are around us.
(38:16):
The future is not a distantpoint.
It is a spiral that we shapewith every decision we make.
So when we talk about reclaimingthe timeline, we are talking
about stepping into our power asco-authors of the universe.
We are talking about no longerreacting to the system, but
rewriting the rules altogether.
Juneteenth is a portal, aspiritual doorway that asks what
(38:39):
will you plant, what will youbuild?
What legacy will you leavebehind?
Because our timeline is notwritten in ink.
It is written in intention,reimagining our institutions
from the ground up.
To reclaim our future, we muststop asking for seats at tables
that were never built for us.
We must build new rooms, neweconomies, new schools, new
(39:03):
languages of power.
What would it look like ifevery Black child learned
financial literacy and ancestralwisdom before age 10?
We created our own medicalcooperatives rooted in holistic,
african-centered healing.
Our communities pooledresources to buy back the block.
We controlled our own foodsystems, banks, tech platforms,
(39:24):
media networks and justicesystems.
This is not a fantasy.
This is what our ancestorsprayed for.
We cannot beg the oppressor toheal us.
We must create new blueprints,because we have the minds, we
have the skill, we have thedivine technology in our DNA.
We don't need permission to beexcellent, we need strategy.
(39:46):
Education is the battlefield ofthe future.
If we don't teach our childrenwho they are, the world will
teach them who they are not.
Our children deserve more thanwatered-down history and
diversity day.
They deserve the truth.
They deserve to know aboutMansa Musa, queen Zinga, the
(40:06):
Dogon, the Maroons, marcusGarvey, asada Shakur, harriet
Tubman's prophetic visions,fannie Lou Hamer's fire, malcolm
X's discipline and thespiritual science of blackness
itself.
The classroom has always beenpolitical, because when you
(40:26):
control the mind, you controlthe destiny.
So let's be clear Reclaimingthe timeline means reclaiming
the curriculum.
We must raise children who knowthey descend from kings,
warriors, engineers, oracles andhealers.
Children who don't just want ajob, they want a legacy.
Children who know they areworthy, not because of what they
achieve, but because of whothey are.
We are not raising consumers,we are raising creators.
(40:50):
Culture is power.
Let's use it to lead.
Black culture has always ledthe world.
Our slang becomes globallanguage, our fashion becomes
the blueprint for style, ourmusic sets the tempo of the
planet, our struggles birth theblueprint for every other
movement, and yet we often don'town it, we don't benefit from
(41:11):
it, we are copied, commodifiedand left behind.
So reclaiming the timelinemeans owning our brilliance,
protecting it, monetizing itwith integrity, sharing it in
ways that build us, not justeveryone else.
Let's be intentional with ourinfluence.
Let's stop selling our imagefor cheap while the world
(41:31):
profits from our pain.
Let's create platforms thatcenter our joy, our truth and
our power, without needingvalidation, because cultural
power is real power, and ourpower without needing validation
, because cultural power is realpower.
And we already have it.
Black economics the future is inour hands.
We spend over $1.6 trillionannually as a collective.
(41:52):
We are not poor.
We are misdirected, becausepoverty isn't just a lack of
money.
It's a lack of access,knowledge and systems that
prioritize collective wealth.
Imagine a future where weinvest in black-owned banks and
credit unions.
We build community land truststo stop gentrification, we
circulate the black dollar for30-plus days before it leaves
(42:15):
our community, we own our owngrocery stores, schools,
transportation systems and mediaoutlets.
This isn't fantasy, it's math,it's will, it's focus.
Juneteenth should not just be aparty.
It should be a business summit.
It should be a reset, astrategy session, a moment where
we say never again will ourbrilliance build someone else's
(42:37):
empire.
We are the investment, we arethe ROI, reclaiming leadership,
redefining power.
We have enough influencers.
We need leaders, not just onstages, but in neighborhoods, in
homes, in schools, in business,in policy, in spirit.
(42:59):
Reclaiming the timeline meansreclaiming our voice in every
space.
That doesn't mean replicatingsystems of oppression and
blackface.
It means building leadershipgrounded in Iwapile good
character.
It means returning to Africanmodels of accountability,
community wisdom and balance.
We are not here to imitatepower.
(43:20):
We are here to transform it.
The future belongs to those whoknow how to listen deeply,
speak truthfully and act withcourage.
And we've been doing that sincethe first drumbeat, since the
first prayer on stone.
(43:51):
Thank you, I'm going to make alittle Thank you, thank you.
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