Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Juneteenth, Tulsa, and a moment of racial reckoning in America
On June 19, 1865, slaves in Texas finally learned they were free. Juneteenth, a commemoration of that moment 155 years ago, has been called America’s second Independence Day.
By Madeleine Brand • • 15m ListenOn June 19, 1865, slaves in Texas finally learned they were free. Juneteenth, a commemoration of that moment 155 years ago, has been called America’s second Independence Day. And today it’s drawing more attention as the nation continues to grapple with systemic racism.
This year, the holiday comes the day before President Trump holds what’s being billed as a “comeback rally” in Tulsa. And it will happen just blocks away from the site of one of the worst racial massacres in the nation’s history, where white mobs burned down a thriving Black community, killing hundreds in 1921.
Madeleine Brand
Host, 'Press Play'
Sarah Sweeney
Vice President of Talk Programming, KCRW
Michell Eloy
Line Editor, Press Play
Rosalie Atkinson
Associate producer
James Goodwin
civil rights attorney and publisher of Tulsa’s black-owned weekly newspaper
Daina Ramey Berry
University of Texas at Austin and author of “A Black Women’s History of the United States"