Naming injustice isn’t unpatriotic. It’s healing.
💡 Quick Takeaway
This week, many workplaces will honor Juneteenth with a day off, a slide deck, maybe a catered lunch–if at all.
And while gestures of recognition matter, Juneteenth is not just a date. It’s a wound, a legacy, and a long overdue acknowledgment that freedom wasn’t universal in 1776.
Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, when enslaved Black Americans in Texas were finally informed of their freedom—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Grief, rage, joy, exhaustion, and resistance are all part of that story.
Mental health means making space for those complex truths—and noticing the toll of pretending they’re not there.
🔬 Psychological Framing
Racial trauma is not only historical—it’s cumulative, ongoing, and deeply embedded in systems (Comas-Díaz et al., 2019).
Suppressing or avoiding historical grief leads to internalized shame, anxiety, and collective disconnection (Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2005).
ACT encourages us to make space for painful truths, rather than avoid or overwrite them, and to take values-aligned action even when it's uncomfortable (Hayes et al., 2006).
APA-style citations:
Comas-Díaz, L., Hall, G. N., & Neville, H. A. (2019). Racial trauma: Theory, research, and healing. American Psychologist, 74(1), 1–16. Article
Bryant-Davis, T., & Ocampo, C. (2005). Racist incident-based trauma. The Counseling Psychologist, 33(4), 479–500. Article
Hayes, S. C., et al. (2006). Acceptance and commitment therapy: Model, processes and outcomes. Behavior Research and Therapy, 44(1), 1–25. Article
🔎 Cultural Reframe
Juneteenth is not a one-size-fits-all holiday.
For some, it’s a sacred celebration of Black liberation.
For others, it’s a reminder of how long injustice was ignored—and how often it still is.
If you’re Black: You don’t have to perform pride or patriotism. Your grief, your boundaries, your joy, your fatigue—they all count. You don’t need to explain your history for it to matter.
If you’re not Black: Practice presence, not performance. Learn, listen, donate, disrupt—but don’t center yourself. Anti-racism is a practice, not a post.
📚 Resources for the Curious
🎧 Podcast - Code Switch – “What Juneteenth Means Now”
📖 Book - Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to Be an Antiracist.
🗂️ Tool - Personal History & Justice Journal Page — Reflect on what freedom has meant in your life, and whose stories were left out.
✨ If You Only Remember One Thing...
Mental health grows when truth is allowed to breathe.
Juneteenth isn’t about catching up on freedom. It’s about recognizing how far we’ve come—and how far we have to go.