Jim Schuyler
Weekly Reader: On Juneteenth
To VACAP Leadership and Friends:
The Weekly Reader takes a pause this week (although it has been a week with significant news of interest) to urge everyone to think about the importance of the holiday of Juneteenth to American history.
I like to turn to the writing of Rep. John Lewis, particularly Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, to remind us of what he called the “endless struggle”.
Children holding hands, walking with the wind. That is America to me—not just the movement for civil rights but the endless struggle to respond with decency, dignity and a sense of brotherhood (and sisterhood) to all the challenges we face as a nation. That is the story, in essence, of my life, of the path to which I have been committed since I turned from a boy into a man, and to which I remain committed today. It is a path that extends beyond the issue of race alone, and beyond class as well. And gender. And age. And every other distinction that tends to separate us as human beings rather than bring us together. That path involves nothing else than the pursuit of the most precious and pure concept I have ever known, an ideal I discovered as a young man and that has guided me like a beacon ever since, a concept called the Beloved Community.
I just finished reading a new work by Annette Gordon-Reed called On Juneteenth. It is a brief (no more than 150 page) series of essays that explores the long road to June 19, 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in Texas. Professor Gordon-Reed was born and raised in Texas and offers a most timely history lesson. Her stories and personal memories are very powerful and she shows how history affects our lives and becomes distorted and reinvigorated over time. She also shows how to challenge established notions, as she did about the prevailing narratives around Thomas Jefferson in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Hemingses of Monticello. I recommend it to you as you reflect on the meaning of Juneteenth tomorrow and this weekend.
I wish you a meaningful and enjoyable Juneteenth holiday! The VACAP office will be closed tomorrow to honor the message of Juneteenth.
Thanks for reading!
Jim Schuyler
VACAP
VACAP
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Former STOP, Inc. Project Discovery alumnae Annette Booker was recognized by the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce as one of Austin's "Hidden Figures!" Annette is a Process Integration Engineer at Samsung Austin Semiconductor. She is graduate of Oscar F. Smith High School in Chesapeake and received her undergraduate degree at Norfolk State University, and her graduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Luna Powell, a recent graduate of Warwick High School, joined Project Discovery during her freshman year. Ms. Powell states “Project Discovery has changed me as a person and expanded my horizons. I am genuinely grateful to Project Discovery because, without it, I would have likely lack the essential knowledge about higher education and not be able to meet all the delightful people in the program. Project Discovery helped to become more extroverted and exposed me to new experiences that have led to who I am now”.