Juneteenth Is about the Black Family — Stop Making It about Abortion

Abortion solves none of the problems facing black families today. It isn’t justice, it’s death.

When we celebrate Juneteenth, we don’t just celebrate the end of slavery in America. We celebrate the beginning of black families living freely and safely. We celebrate the right of black Americans to build families — and, in doing so, to build futures. Post-Dobbs, it’s become popular to argue that racial justice and the right to abort preborn children are inextricably linked. But the pro-abortion agenda and true racial justice — the sort of racial justice we celebrate on June 19 — couldn’t be more opposed.

On June 19, 1865, about 250,000 enslaved black Texans finally learned they’d been freed under the Emancipation Proclamation. The order had legally gone into effect more than two years earlier, but the struggle to subdue Confederate territories continued.

One of the first things newly freed slaves did was look for their families, as the evil of chattel slavery had cruelly separated parents, children, and siblings. They posted ads in local papers and roamed around the country, looking for lost spouses and children. Their frantic efforts to reunite with loved ones was characteristic of the Reconstruction era. Freedom, for them, undeniably meant building and protecting families and forming strong communities.