CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Saturday is Juneteenth, the new federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.
Juneteenth is certainly not a "new" holiday despite its new federal designation and the fact that many people just learned of it following the murder of George Floyd.
WCNC Charlotte contacted multiple civil rights leaders and historians to discuss the importance of Juneteenth and its significance for Black Americans.
"Juneteenth is liberation," said Johnson C. Smith University's Dr. Terza Lima-Neves. "Also remembrance, remembering the ancestors who sacrificed who were treated poorly, horrifically and a journey into the present."
"Juneteenth is jubilant," said Afeni Grace with the Harvey B. Gantt Center. "We have a long way to go but I feel like American history is Black history."
"To talk about it is to honor all of who we are as a society, as a community," Lima-Neves said.
Despite the importance of Juneteenth, Grace and Lima-Neves are concerned that it's not a bigger part of history classes in school.
"If my family, you know, wasn't very kind of like a proponent of me learning about my history, I probably wouldn't learn much Juneteenth at all," Grace said.
"It needs to be part of the curriculum and institutionalized in the education system so that the past doesn't repeat itself, but also as a sense of pride in who we are as a community," Lima-Neves said. "Particularly for Black Americans, it's very important."
"Black people are such a huge thread in the fabric of the United States and I feel like we would all be uplifted if we all learned more about Black history, specifically Juneteenth," Grace explained.
Lima-Neves hopes that Americans' renewed sense of learning history and creating equity isn't just a passing phase.
"I hope that it's not just something temporary, that it becomes part of a national discussion and that, again, it's institutionalized where it becomes a national holiday and that we're not just doing these celebrations, for example, or commemorating by having it as a paid holiday as just an aside," Lima-Neves said. "Or just for show, or for the moment to be seen in the media, that we're really serious because it is very serious for the African-American community and we need to show some longevity behind it."
Contact Ruby Durham at rdurham@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.