By Renee Mahaffey Harris, President & CEO of the Center for Closing the Health Gap

Juneteenth has been celebrated by African Americans for over a hundred years while most Americans had no knowledge of its existence.  This week the US Congress approved a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.  As you celebrate this significant holiday, let’s remember the people who lived through slavery, Jim Crow, lost loved ones and property because of their ancestry, overcame hatred, marched for civil rights and justice, prospered despite institutional limitations, and those who live their lives baffled and pained by injustice but still PERSEVERE.  The Maya Angelou poem ‘Still I Rise’ personifies what Juneteenth means to me.

Learn more about Juneteenth https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/learning/five-ways-to-learn-about-juneteenth-with-the-new-york-times.html

Still I Rise poem https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise