On June 19, across the United States, Juneteenth was once again celebrated—not merely as a federal holiday, but as a living, breathing reminder of freedom delayed and dignity reclaimed. For African Americans, June 19, 1865, marks a profound historical moment: the day when the last remaining enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were finally informed of their freedom—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed into law. Juneteenth is not just a commemoration of delayed justice; it is a symbol of resilience, memory, and the ongoing pursuit of true liberation in a nation still reckoning with its legacy of slavery and inequality.
But for foreign-born Blacks living in America today, this day carries another meaning: a quiet moral debt. It is a day to reflect on the legacy we did not directly inherit, but from which we now benefit. The freedoms we exercise, the spaces we occupy, and the opportunities we pursue were not created in isolation—they were built through the sacrifices of Black Americans who fought battles we never had to fight. To honor that truth is not to diminish our own stories, but to acknowledge the foundation laid by those who endured the unendurable so that all of us—regardless of where we came from—could walk a little more freely on American soil.
From Galveston to the Globe: Juneteenth as a Living History
Just yesterday—June 19, 2025—across parks, city halls, museums, and digital platforms, Americans of all backgrounds gathered to celebrate Juneteenth. Flags waved. Drums sounded. Elders gave testimonies. Youth danced. And in each act of remembrance was the living heartbeat of a people who refused to vanish.
Juneteenth, now a federal holiday, commemorates the moment on June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and enforced the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years after it had been signed. What that moment represents is not merely legal freedom—it is delayed justice. It is a historical metaphor for what it means to be Black in America: to receive recognition long after pain has been endured.
That is why the celebration is sacred. Juneteenth is not just for those who lived through slavery. It is for every generation afterward who lived through the aftershock—through Jim Crow, mass incarceration, voter suppression, and police brutality. And it is for those who stand in solidarity today, whether African American by birth or African by immigration. Juneteenth does not ask where you’re from. It asks where your heart stands.
The Quiet Divide
There is a silence, almost invisible, that sometimes hangs between Black Americans and foreign-born Blacks. It’s the glance that questions. The comment that dismisses. The accent that is imitated. The stereotype that slips out. While united by skin, the two groups often live divided by experience, shaped by histories that the world treats as similar but are, in fact, profoundly different.
Foreign Blacks—those from Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, Haiti, Ethiopia, and beyond—arrive in the United States with cultures, stories, and aspirations that are rich and beautiful, but also sometimes shielded from the brutal specifics of American racial dynamics. Many arrive with the hope that hard work will suffice. That racism, though real, is something that can be navigated or outsmarted.
In contrast, Black Americans were not introduced to this country—they were engineered into it through centuries of dehumanization. They did not migrate—they were transported. And they did not enter the system—they were the system’s foundation. This divide, unless acknowledged and examined with compassion, can turn into quiet resentment, mutual misunderstanding, or worse—a hierarchy of suffering that breeds competition where there should be communion.
Standing on the Shoulders of a Struggle
It must be said without hesitation: foreign-born Blacks in America live in the house that African Americans built with their bodies, their blood, and their ballots. Every civil rights law, affirmative action policy, educational access point, and social safety net that protects all Black people in America was constructed by the labor and activism of Black Americans.
From the plantation to the courthouse, from the cotton field to the classroom, from the back of the bus to the steps of the Capitol—Black Americans demanded rights that they were never expected to fight for, and in doing so, made space for all Black people, regardless of origin.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which allowed many African and Caribbean immigrants to enter the U.S., was a direct product of the Civil Rights Movement. The sacrifices of Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. weren’t only for the children of Alabama—they paved the way for the children of Accra and Lagos too.
Foreign Blacks today walk through doors that were opened by people who were once considered 3/5ths human. That truth does not demand guilt. But it does require gratitude.
Gratitude Is Not Weakness—It Is Clarity
There is a deep confusion around the concept of gratitude. Some believe it means lowering oneself, offering deference, or hiding pride. But in this context, gratitude is clarity—the ability to see the truth of one’s position in the historical chain and to honor those who made it possible.
Gratitude means showing up at Juneteenth with more than a plate—it means showing up with awareness. It means participating in Black History Month with more than a post—it means bringing reverence. It means hearing the anger of Black Americans not as bitterness, but as the sound of an open wound still searching for justice.
To be grateful is to say: Your fight was not just for you. It was for me too. I see that now. And I carry it forward with you. That is not weakness. That is moral intelligence.
Unlearning Superiority, Building Empathy
Psychologically, many foreign-born Blacks arrive in the U.S. with internalized messages passed down through colonial education, religious indoctrination, and Western media. They may have been taught—implicitly or explicitly—that Black Americans are lazy, ungrateful, violent, or inferior. These ideas are not original thoughts—they are colonial infections.
What foreign Blacks must confront is that they too were taught by the same system that oppressed Black Americans. The accent may differ. The history may be localized. But the source—the devaluation of Blackness—is shared.
To unlearn these messages takes humility. It requires listening, sitting with discomfort, and replacing pity with partnership. It means recognizing that even if you did not come here in chains, the system still sees you through the lens those chains created.
And from that shared recognition can come empathy. Real empathy. Not the kind that pities, but the kind that stands next to the wounded and says: I believe you. And I’m here to walk with you.
The Wounds of American Blackness Run Deep
No one else on earth carries the particular trauma of the African American experience. Centuries of legal enslavement, followed by a century of segregation, followed by ongoing systemic exclusion—this is a historical marathon of pain that has not yet crossed its finish line.
Even now, in 2025, Black Americans face disparities in housing, healthcare, education, employment, wealth, and life expectancy. Their culture is imitated, but their lives are devalued. Their history is taught in fragments—if at all. And their identity is often caricatured rather than cherished.
Yet despite this, Black Americans have birthed some of the most powerful cultural, intellectual, and spiritual movements in modern history. From gospel music to jazz, from civil rights to hip hop, from Black theology to Black feminism—they have created beauty from brokenness.
Foreign Blacks who mock, minimize, or misunderstand this resilience do not just insult a people—they erase a miracle.
A Sacred Convergence: The Power of Unity
Imagine what would happen if Black Americans and foreign-born Blacks stopped sizing each other up and started standing together. Imagine if the revolutionary memory of Mississippi joined with the ancestral memory of Mali. Imagine if African pride met African American pain with compassion instead of critique.
Together, these communities could form a cultural and political force unlike anything America has seen—a diasporic coalition grounded in shared identity, mutual respect, and collective vision.
Unity does not mean uniformity. We don’t have to speak the same dialect, cook the same dishes, or wear the same styles. But we must speak the same moral language: liberation, dignity, solidarity.
A Message to White America: Quietly Witnessing the Healing
To those outside the Black experience—especially in White America—what may seem like internal tension among Black communities is, in truth, a necessary process of reconnection. It is not division—it is restoration. When African Americans and foreign-born Blacks engage in dialogue, challenge assumptions, and confront painful history, they are not fracturing solidarity; they are reinforcing it.
This work—long overdue—is unfolding in ways that were never part of the old design. For generations, distance between Black peoples served as a quiet advantage to those in power. But something is shifting. When Nigerians mourn George Floyd, when Haitians stand with the family of Breonna Taylor, when Ghanaians walk in Juneteenth parades—they are not guests. They are family, returning.
And what we are seeing is not chaos. It is healing. Quiet, overdue, and powerful. And in that healing, there is not just survival—but the quiet formation of new leadership, grounded in shared history and renewed unity.
A Call to Foreign Blacks: Look Again
To every foreign-born Black person: if you’ve ever said “that’s not my struggle,” or “that’s a Black American issue,” or “we’re not the same”—look again.
Your children will grow up in a system shaped by the realities of American Blackness. Their names, accents, and even aspirations will be filtered through a lens designed in the era of slavery. Whether you feel connected to it or not, the system already sees you as family.
So embrace the family. Lean in. Learn. Listen. Show up—not to lead, but to link arms. Because unity without respect is exploitation. But unity with respect? That’s revolution.
A Word to Black Americans: Your Legacy Is Global
To Black Americans: know this—your legacy is not just American. It is African. It is Caribbean. It is Brazilian. It is global. Your survival has inspired resistance movements around the world. Your freedom songs were sung in Soweto. Your protests were studied in London. Your courage gave language to those who didn’t know how to name their own oppression.
You are not alone. You have never been alone. The diaspora is not your competition—it is your echo.
And we are listening.
One Wound, One Will
We are not divided by geography. We are united by grief. We are not just African or American or Caribbean—we are the same dream interrupted, now trying to rewrite itself in full.
Let us step into the next Juneteenth not as strangers to each other, but as a people finally relearning how to love across ocean lines.
Because beyond all borders and beyond all difference—we are one heritage.
And the world is watching what we do with it.
