One Day is Not Enough. We Need Reparations.

While we celebrate Juneteenth, and the fact that it’s now a federal holiday, let’s remember that one day is not enough.

One day is not enough because for hundreds of years we were not free and still, too many of us will wake up tomorrow and not live the life of the truly free. Too many of us will wake up in homes that we do not own and go to work jobs that do not pay living wages. We will breathe air that is disproportionately dirtier and drink water that is disproportionately less safe.

Too many of us will drive down cracked roads, and over crumbling bridges, drop our children off at dilapidated schools, and never be able to start the businesses we’ve dreamed of, condemned to a life where there is no substantive freedom, just a struggle to survive.

Too many of us will wake up in prison cells, and too many of us will not wake up at all, murdered by those sworn to protect us, made sick by the pollutants dumped into our communities. Passed during childbirth, as I nearly did, or because life-saving medical care remains out of reach, as it was for my child.

One day is not enough.

One day is not enough when slavery was ended but dues were never paid and the systems that upheld it and were built upon it remained.

We need reparations.

The legacy of slavery has manifest itself in a ten trillion dollar wealth gap between white families and Black families.

We don’t need a holiday, we need to follow the lead of South Africa and of Germany and come to terms with the atrocities and the crimes against humanity that were committed by this country. We need to close that ten trillion dollar gap by matching that amount in reparations.

Reparations that make our schools cathedrals of education, that provide capital for Black-owned businesses, that ensure climate justice, that provide homeownership opportunities, that finance the infrastructure revolution our communities need, and yes, put cash in the hands of Black Americans.

It is obscene to accuse us of asking too much of a Government that robbed us of everything.

One day is not enough.

We need reparations if we’re ever going to make this a country that fulfills its promise.

Add your name to our petition: https://act.ericaforus.com/signup/em_ms_ES_20210601_EA_reparations/?source=em20210619-190&t=1&akid=190%2E9631%2EG5xhX9