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What Freedom Really Meant on Juneteenth - The Atlantic

theatlantic.com · 2,414 words · saved by 1 readers

This year’s Juneteenth commemorations must take a deeper look at the history of Black self-liberation to understand what emancipation really means—and how far the country still has to go.

T wo centuries ago, a woman named Esther claimed her freedom. The enslaved woman filed a suit against her enslaver, Bernard H. Buckner, on behalf of herself and her two children in federal court. In 1827, Buckner had intended to move the family to his new home in the District of Columbia, but had neglected to heed a local law requiring him to relocate them within a year of establishing residency. It was a technicality, part of a law designed to stop the importation of enslaved people into the capital. But Esther knew the law, and kept track of each of the 365 days that needed to pass before he

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