Juneteenth, the celebration of the good news in 1865 that the great abomination of slavery had ended, is a contradictory holiday. It’s joyful in that it commemorates the emancipation of millions of Americans from subhuman legal status. It is sorrowful in that its promise of full citizenship for Black people took so long to realize and still faces so many challenges.

It’s been this way since the original Juneteenth. No sooner had the battle cry of freedom fallen silent than the defeated rebel states devised new laws and customs to tie ex-slaves to the land and subject them to the whip of the overseer and the burning cross of the ex-Confederate terrorist. The Civil Rights Amendments to the Constitution, still controversial today, on paper gave ex-slaves citizenship rights. And Congressional Reconstruction placed the boots of Union soldiers on the necks of the ex-rebels so that Black people could vote and serve in public office. But, eventually, the white people of the North grew tired of Reconstruction and largely hostile to ex-slaves, who were often denied the right to vote in the North and South alike.

By 1877, many white people across the two regions had reconciled. They began framing the terrible war that had liberated the slaves as really a misunderstanding about states’ rights, which meant ex-slaves had no claim on the fruits of victory. With federal protection withdrawn along with sanctions against ex-Confederates, the southern states began to disenfranchise........

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