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We hope this past weekend our communities came together to appreciate what Juneteenth is about.
There is reason to believe our communities did.
Juneteenth National Independence Day commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.
Although President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in 1863, it could not be enforced in many places in the South until the Civil War ended. But even then, some white people who had profited from their unpaid labor did not immediately share the news about that freedom with those whom they controlled.
Even though for generations Black Americans have recognized and celebrated the end of one of the United States' darkest chapters by way of parades, street festivals, cookouts, musical events and other activities, the U.S. Government was slow to embrace - or otherwise give official recognition to - that important happening.
In June 2021, after both Houses of Congress passed legislation to create the 12th federal holiday, President Joe Biden affixed his signature to the measure, saying he believed it would be one of the greatest honors of his presidency.
While signing the measure, he said, "This is a day of profound weight and profound power, a day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take."
He then commented that "I hope this is the beginning of a change in the way we deal with one another."
And we see evidence that it slowly is.
We see evidence at Brandon Park, where Williamsport came together on Saturday to hear remarks on the day's importance, for their children to play games and to meet and befriend their neighbors.
We hope in boroughs and neighborhoods across our region other, smaller events offered the same platforms to celebrate unity and perseverance over the obstacles the American people -- of all colors, creeds and beliefs -- have encountered as we try to make this union more perfect.
That is the challenge Juneteenth lays before us, and it is a challenge worth meeting and worth celebrating.