Gospel singer Yolanda Adams performs during the 2024 Juneteenth celebration in the Fillmore District in San Francisco. Juneteenth commemorates the day when enslaved Black people in Texas were finally freed, but it is not just a Black holiday. 

Commemorating the date in 1865 that the last enslaved Black people in Texas were finally freed of the yoke of bondage, June 19 — Juneteenth — is rightly called America’s second Independence Day.

Juneteenth is a day of immense importance and pride to Black people across America. It marked the end of more than two centuries of slavery and the beginning of the next chapter in the long battle for freedom and equality. We celebrate our culture and work to ensure it remains an essential living, breathing and thriving part of America.

But Juneteenth is not just a Black holiday. It should be a day when all Americans join with the Black community in commemorating this day of independence — remembering as we do what came before and recommitting ourselves to a society that rejects racism and embraces diversity, inclusion, justice and humanity.

We need this unity among all Americans, especially now, as the disheartening evidence continues to mount that, as a nation, we are regressing when it comes to the goal of achieving racial equality. Almost daily, we are witnessing the reemergence of overt racism, injustice and violence that threatens to turn back the clock to........

© San Francisco Chronicle