Today, June 19th, we celebrate Juneteenth, the oldest celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. It commemorates June 19th, 1865, the day the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, brought the very belated news of the end of slavery to Texas. While President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became effective on January 1, 1963, it wasn’t until two and a half years later that the news arrived in Galveston, Texas. 

Just as news of the end of slavery was delayed for people enslaved in Texas, everything from tragic news headlines to day-to-day experiences of Black Americans shows that justice still is delayed. Indeed, the work of the Innocence Project of Minnesota and the innocence movement generally shows that even when innocent, Black Americans are wrongly locked up at a disproportionate rate. 

The Innocence Project of Minnesota marks this day, Juneteenth 2020, by committing ourselves to freeing the wrongfully convicted and establishing an antiracist and effective justice system.