As We Approach Juneteenth, My Reflections from Black History Month Still Resonate

by Mikaela VanMoorleghem, MPA

As we approach Juneteenth, I find myself thinking back to the reflections I carried during Black History Month earlier this year. Those thoughts still resonate deeply with me. In many ways, they have only grown stronger.

Black History Month in 2026 felt different to me. Not heavier exactly, just more honest. I found myself less able to hide behind the idea that “we’ve come so far.” It arrived in a world that feels unsettled and tired, where conversations about race, history, and justice are often rushed, avoided, or reduced to something easier than the truth. So, I found myself asking how I show up in this moment, and whether I’m willing to honestly examine my own privilege. When I do that, I’m reminded how much I’ve moved through this world without having to think twice.

I have never gone to a gas station late at night and been questioned about why I’m there. I have never been walking through a park, birdwatching or simply existing, and had the police called because someone felt uneasy about my presence. I have never worried that sitting in my car, jogging through my neighborhood, browsing in a store, or waiting for a friend might be seen as suspicious or dangerous. I have never had to rehearse how to survive a routine traffic stop.

That isn’t because I’ve done everything right. It’s because I’m white. And this isn’t accusatory. It’s simply the reality of being able to move through ordinary moments without fear, of being able to exist without constant scrutiny. It’s something I didn’t earn, but something I benefit from, and sitting with that matters. Being honest about the ways the world has been easier for me helps shape how I choose to show up.

As I sit with that truth, I begin to notice the pattern beneath it. The ease I experience isn’t accidental, and the fear others carry isn’t random. When some people are questioned, watched, or treated as threats in everyday situations and others are not, it points to something larger than individual behavior.

It reveals how systems, policies, and assumptions can operate in ways that protect some lives more readily than others. It leaves me asking how systems came to function this way, and what it means for me to engage with that reality honestly.

For me, it doesn’t start with having the right words or solutions. It starts with paying attention, listening to experiences that aren’t my own, and resisting the urge to explain them away or make them more comfortable.

It means noticing when my own ease is part of a larger pattern, and allowing that awareness to shape how I listen, what I question, and where I place my trust. It’s slower, more reflective work, and often uncomfortable, but it feels like a necessary beginning.

As Juneteenth approaches, these reflections feel especially important. Juneteenth reminds us that freedom delayed is freedom denied. It calls us to remember truths that are sometimes easier to ignore: that liberation did not arrive equally or immediately, and that the effects of injustice do not simply disappear with time.

But Juneteenth is also a celebration. It is about resilience, culture, faith, family, leadership, creativity, and joy. It is about generations of Black Americans who built, created, led, and persevered in the face of extraordinary injustice. It is about communities that continued to hope, celebrate, worship, organize, and dream, even when this country failed to fully honor its own promises.

Honoring Juneteenth means making space for the fullness of that story. Not reducing Black history to suffering alone, but also celebrating brilliance, contribution, leadership, and joy. Both truths belong together.

So as Juneteenth nears, I find myself returning to the same invitation I felt during Black History Month: to listen more carefully, to remain open to uncomfortable truths, and to continue learning how to move through this world with greater humility, curiosity, and respect.

That feels like the work of this moment. Not perfect. Not finished. But honest and still grounded in hope.