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Today we celebrated Juneteenth, the day in 1865 in which the slaves were freed in Galveston, TX, more than two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, although still a few months before slavery was outlawed in the Union. The first time I heard about Juneteenth was my a friend in Texas and, today, when we were having our Zoom happy hour and I mentioned this, she said that she became acquainted with it, when she lived in New York state, since the African-American community has long celebrated it.

This is the second African-American holiday that I have seen gain importance ever since moving here, almost 23 years ago. The first one was MLK's birthday. The trouble with social change is that you have to step back and look at it from a distance. If you're too close, you almost miss it. But things are changing and they seem to be changing in the right direction.