07/04/2026
The fireworks will light up the sky. The grills will smoke. Families will gather, music will play, and joy will fill the air.
But as an African American woman, the Fourth of July is not a simple celebration.
I carry joy, but I also carry history.
I know this country declared freedom before it was willing to fully deliver it to people who looked like me. In 1776, while America claimed independence, enslaved Africans were still being bought, sold, separated from their families, and denied their humanity.
Black women carried a special kind of burden. We carried families, labor, grief, faith, and the future on backs that were never supposed to bend, but somehow never broke.
That is the tension I carry.
I know how to celebrate, but I also know how to tell the truth. That is not confusion. That is wisdom.
For African Americans, freedom has never been passive. For Black women, freedom has never been optional.
Freedom meant learning, building, marching, voting, serving, leading, raising children, buying land, telling the truth, and refusing to disappear.
So this Fourth of July, I ask:
What does freedom mean now?
Does it mean economic mobility for Black families?
Does it mean protection for Black women and girls?
Does it mean health care that honors our pain and our lives?
Does it mean the right to rest, dream, build, lead, and live without apology?
Freedom cannot only be symbolic.
It must be felt in our homes, schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, voting booths, boardrooms, and bank accounts.
And still, I celebrate.
I celebrate because my ancestors did not endure for me to live without joy. I celebrate because laughter is part of liberation. I celebrate because Black women have always turned survival into strength and community into power.
My joy is not denial.
My joy is evidence.
Evidence that we survived.
Evidence that we built.
Evidence that we are still here.
Freedom is not just something America celebrates once a year.
Freedom is something Black women have been carrying, protecting, building, and demanding every single day.
