Towards Deep Freedom

To Honor Juneteenth, we must take up the unfinished work of Reconstruction

Left to right: Harriet Tubman; Gertie Davis; Lee Cheney; “Pop” Alexander; Walter Green; Sarah Parker; and Dora Stewart. (The New York Public Library.)

Juneteenth honors the turning point when, 160 years ago, the liberation of our enslaved yet dignified Africans forever reshaped the trajectory of the United States. This liberation was the result of generations of Black-led multiracial organizing to build organizations capable of both winning campaigns and uniting majorities for the sake of defeating the rising threat of an intercontinental Confederate slave empire. This liberation was made possible precisely when the revolutionary abolitionist movement transformed from a militant minority with moral suasion to a political majority through the creation of mass organizations and political parties that were serious about taking seats of power. This liberation was sustained and protected when this majoritarian revolutionary movement won governing power and proceeded to embark on a radical agrarian and political reconstruction of the entire social and economic system in this country. And most crucially, this liberation was achieved by leaders of people inspired and called to visions of deep freedom.

In every apocalyptic moment in history, there have been people who have decided to become the agents and authors of their own fate. Shaken by the harrowing catastrophes of their day, they opted to view their suffering as a potentially creative force that could be transformed into the kind of power needed to overcome the dire moment they found themselves in. Not only that, but these people, these revolutionaries, knew that to win what our people deserved, it was necessary to nourish and develop themselves and the masses of people they led to be prepared for anything anywhere at any moment. In order to embark on sustained transformational change, our people need powerful and fortifying experiences that find their spark, unleash their fire, and unshackle their calling towards freedom. This means engaging in powerful majority campaigns, deep and sustained leadership and life development, and ongoing cultivation of our strategic grounding in this concrete moment in world history.

Today the organizations that make up the Black freedom movement need revitalization and their strategy needs coherence, especially in the face of the New Confederate onslaught. To address these crises, we need to systematically develop Black leaders who avoid the false duality of race liberalism and ultra-left navel gazing, who are solidarity- grounded and strategy- guided, and who are fundamentally driven by the animating principle of deep freedom that drove our ancestors to victory 160 years ago. Only that will allow us to both defeat the far-right threat we face today—a New Confederacy—and build the power to complete the unfinished task of fundamentally reconstructing the US political, economic and social system. Settling for anything less than everything we deserve is woefully inadequate for the challenging times ahead.

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Aaron Jamal is an organizer in North Carolina and is committed to the socialist transformation of the United States. Aaron writes regularly on his Substack, Black Unbound.