Before the U.S. Congress' recent passing of legislation to President Biden for final approval, Cornell University chose to acknowledge Juneteenth with a day of reflection. Juneteenth is the oldest nationally recognized commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States, an event that happened in Galveston, TX in 1865 - two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Juneteenth holiday provides us all with an opportunity to step away from our daily work tasks and step towards deepening our understanding of how far we've come and how far we've yet to go. We stand united with those in support of freedom and equality, while we recognize that the work is never done.
Please join us in reading items from our staff book list, visit the Roper Center Black America and Public Opinion pages, and consider how you can contribute to our collective progress.
What's on our reading list?
- "In the Mecca" by Gwendolyn Brooks
- "Sister Outsider" by Audre Lorde
- "How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective" by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
- "So You Want to Talk About Race" by Ijeoma Oluo
- "I'm Still Here" by Austin Channing Brown
- "How the Word Is Passed" by Clint Smith
- "The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature" by J. Drew Lanham
- "Caste" by Isabel Wilkerson
- "How to be an Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi
- "We Want to do More Than Survive" by Betina L. Love
- "High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America," Jessica B. Harris