This year, June 19, 2023 marks the 158th anniversary of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of legal slavery in the United States.
Please join the Law School community in celebrating this important day in history through various community programs—including “Juneteenth: Reflections on Freedom, Racial, and Economic Justice for African Descendants,” during which Professor Tanya K. Hernández will serve as the keynote speaker.
“Juneteenth: Reflections on Freedom, Racial, and Economic Justice for African Descendants” (Friday,
June 16, 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET)
In celebration of Juneteenth—now a federal holiday—the African American Affairs Committee of the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice and the Nevada Equal Rights Commission (NERC) are co-hosting this hybrid event. The joint program will highlight the significance of abolition and emancipation to the state of racial and economic justice and equality for African descendants—historically, contemporarily, and globally.
Internationally renowned civil rights scholar and Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law Tanya Katerí Hernández, author of “Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality,” will deliver the keynote address. This event will also feature opening remarks from notable leaders from the Nevada community and closing remarks from leaders of the American Bar Association.
Register here. (Please note: Registration closes June 15 at 9:00 p.m. ET.)
Visit here for additional resources about Juneteenth from the American Bar Association.
Other Programs and Events
“A Juneteenth Commemoration. The Past is Not Past: Recognizing, Remembering, and Redressing Domestic Terrorism in the United States” (Friday, June 16, 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.)
Join Professor Paula C. Johnson, director of Cold Case Justice Initiative (CCJI) for the Syracuse University College of Law, for an interesting and informative discussion commemorating Juneteenth. During this event, presented by the Professional Development Committee and Diversity & Inclusion Committee of the Federal Bar Association, Professor Johnson will provide historical background from the pre- and post-Civil War eras and contemporary resonances stemming from the origin of Juneteenth and its present-day meanings. Additionally, she will provide examples of racially motivated massacres of Black communities across eras from Rosewood, FL, Tulsa, OK, Wilmington, NC, Charleston, SC, and Buffalo, NY, in an interdisciplinary focus that includes historical, legal, racial, and intersectional analysis. While commending the resilience of affected Black communities, she will also examine the imperatives for effective legal, educational, and societal responses to redress and prevent the persistent plague of racial violence in the United States.
Fordham’s BLSA’s Juneteenth Celebration
This Juneteenth, join Fordham’s Black Law Students Association (BLSA) in supporting Harlem Reads’ mission to create a reading culture as a strategy to improve language development and learning, as well as to close the academic gap and increase opportunities for Harlem children.
Harlem Reads is a non-profit program run out of Harlem Hospital by Doctor Alexie Puran. The program provides age-appropriate books in English, Spanish, and French to the 16,000 annual patients treated in the Pediatric Emergency Department. Every child who visits the emergency room leaves with a box of books in their preferred language.
Visit here for more information.
“Making Freedom Dreams Reality: Black Activism, Constitutional Rights, & the Ongoing Struggle for Liberation,” A Conversation with Dr. Allison Dorsey, Professor Emerita of History at Swarthmore College (Tuesday, June 20, 12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.)
Fordham University is excited to host this event in person at the Rose Hill Campus as well as provide a virtual option for remote attendees.
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day, was first celebrated as a holiday at Fordham in June 2020. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when the announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army General Gordon Granger, proclaimed African Americans’ freedom from slavery in the state of Texas, roughly two months after the official end of the Civil War.
According to featured guest, historian Dr. Allison Dorsey, the true value of Juneteenth, our newest federal holiday, lies not in the idea of the “celebration” of freedom, but in the way the story of Juneteenth captures the tension between Black freedom dreams and the violent actions by white citizens, bolstered by the state, to deny those dreams. The Juneteenth holiday also offers everyone an opportunity to learn about Black hopes and aspirations—and equally important—Black actions to secure liberty during Reconstruction, and throughout the 160 years since President Lincoln first issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
This event is sponsored by the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, the Office of Human Resources, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Office of the President, and the Office of the Provost.
Attend here. (Please note: You must use your Fordham account to access the ZOOM session.)
A Juneteenth Conversation with Chief Administrative Judge Rowan D. Wilson (Wednesday, June 21, 6:00 p.m.)
A Fireside Chat with Chief Judge Rowan D. Wilson of the New York Court of Appeals, which will be held at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore (825 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10019).
Please note that this event is for Metropolitan Black Bar Association (MBBA) Members only.
ABA-Wide 21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge
The ABA Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council is proud to announce its participation in a “21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge.” The 21-Day Challenge concept—conceived several years ago by diversity expert Eddie Moore, Jr. to advance deeper understandings of the intersections of race, power, privilege, supremacy and oppression—builds off of the Challenge created by the Labor and Employment Law Section in June 2020, which created its own syllabus for the Section.
Visit here for more information.
“The History of Juneteenth & the Importance of Diversifying the Legal Profession”
This online, on-demand CLE program provides an overview of the importance of Juneteenth as a uniquely American holiday and the importance of diversifying the bench and bar.
Speaker: Mirna Martinez Santiago, Esq., Girls Rule the Law, Inc.
Visit here for more information.