Arapahoe County Commissioner Rhonda Fields will be marching in the annual Juneteenth Parade in Denver this weekend, just like she has for years.
That won’t change.
The Black, veteran state lawmaker, activist and now county commissioner says, however, she’s hoping a tsunami of political change since last Juneteenth — maybe the biggest and best ever Juneteenth Parade and music festival in Five Points — won’t diminish the event.
It looks like it already has.
Event organizers have reduced the music-food-shopping-and-fun-packed event in Denver’s Five Points from three days to one this year, saying that corporate and other sponsors have pulled back.
It’s unclear whether association with anything to do with promoting minority rights or pushing for inclusion has businesses big and small nervous and unsure what’s next to come in the Trump administration’s push to dismantle those things.
Here in Aurora, conservatives on the City Council were in front of the Trump administration’s demands that governments dismantle Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs. They began unfunding city programs a few years ago and finished ending it during the last few months.
Trump and supporters of his nonsense couch their insistence on a “merit-only” system of hiring, education and funding by calling DEI programs “reverse discrimination.”
Everett Kelley, who is the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the Associated Press earlier this year that the federal and state governments already hire and promote exclusively based on merit.
He said the recent push behind DEI programs, and just making people cognizant of subtle or blatant biases, has pushed the nation over the last several years to a place in time boasting the lowest gender and racial pay gaps in the workforce.
Trump not only set fire to DEI programs, he indulged his racist supporters who have demanded that schools, museums and other institutions stop working to educate and illuminate Americans about not only how horrific American slavery and segregation were, but how persistent the damage has been from those catastrophes for generations of Black Americans.
“They’re just trying to erase our history,” Fields said about the Trump administration.
She pointed to just days after Trump was inaugurated and how the Pentagon removed from government websites on-line histories of Black heroes such as the Tuskegee Airmen and even baseball great Jackie Robinson.
All this contradicts so much progress made over the past few years in getting people to understand how inclusion of Black people, brown people, Asian people, gay people, women transgender people and others doesn’t cheat white people, and especially white men, out of anything. Nothing is more appropriate than the metaphor that a rising tide lifts all boats than with the idea that understanding, illuminating and honoring the history of Black Americans, and other minorities, moves equality within reach of everyone in the nation.
Juneteenth is maybe the perfect example of that.
The history, detailed in this week’s Sentinel cover story, offers a catalog of insights.
The story has plenty of parallels for today.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, proclaiming that no human could own another as a slave. Only the Union States observed the proclamation. It wasn’t until the South caved during the Civil War in 1865 that slave states turned more than 3 million slaves free.
Most of the states, that is. Not Texas.
More than two months after Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses Grant, turning Texas into another free state, thousands of Black people were still enslaved in Galveston because white slave owners didn’t reveal to Black slaves what had happened.
Many of these people were enslaved for as much as six months after they should have been freed. It was only when Union troops reached the Gulf Coast and announced General Order No. 3 that the truth, literally, set thousands of slaves free.
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.”
It was June 19.
It’s impossible to miss that in 1865, executive orders created a flurry of rights and freedoms.
Since January 2025, however, the most prolific executive-order writer of all time almost daily issues fiats restricting or outright ending rights and freedoms.
June 19 is especially important to Black Aurora filmmaker donnie l. betts. It’s his birthday.
He’s also from Texas, and well versed in the usual Juneteenth celebrations that include red beers and barbecue.
His lifetime career of making documentaries about the real lives, real challenges and real victories of Black Americans has given him a finely honed perspective on all this.
First, betts cautions everyone on the vernacular and exaggerations of Trump and his coopted media channels.
“Don’t be fooled by reporting that the whole country is in chaos,” betts said. “It’s not.”
The only chaos is that constructed or construed by Tump’s MO of creating confusion and his push to “divide and conquer.”
It’s all cover for an attempt to turn back the nation’s clock to a time that not only accepted but promoted the idea that women, people of color and gay and transgender people are not equal to white men.
“We will not be erased,” betts said. “You can eliminate programs, but not us.”
He’s optimistic that the vast majority of Americans will see through the Trump and MAGA shows and push back.
Now would be a good time, he says.
“We as a people and a country need to resist however we feel comfortable in doing it, with education, marching, making films like I do, or filing lawsuits,” he said. “We can’t drop our guards. That’s what they want.”
He acknowledges this is all so overwhelming right now for most people.
“Just pick one thing,” he said. “What thing can I do today? What one thing?”
For the past few years, millions of Americans have been offered context and historical facts that had previously been glossed over or whitewashed. We’ve all learned a lot about each other, mostly how similar we all are.
For the first time since I can remember, the nation worked hard at ending the idea that there are “us” and “them.” The idea of isolating “others” didn’t end, but it became clearer than ever how dangerous and mistaken such a philosophy is.
It’s all back in full force, now, and then some.
Trump says, “They” are poisoning the “blood of the country.” “They” are ruining the “fabric of the nation.” “They” are trying to “destroy the country.”
They are us. All of us.
And anything any of us can do to move any of us ahead is a victory for all of us.
Will Trump move to undo Juneteenth as a national holiday?
“Anything is possible with this administration,” Aurora NAACP Omar Montgomery told the Sentinel. “Depending on which side of the bed the administration wakes up on.”
But for now, Montgomery’s NAACP is planning their local Juneteenth event with the Town Center of Aurora mall for June 21. No doubt that Montgomery, a regular in the Denver Juneteenth Parade will be marching and waving this year.
Fields will.
“I’ll be there. So will my grandkids,” Fields said. “We just have to weather this, and someday, soon, “I’m hoping that we can reconstruct.”
Rest assured. betts will be looking for “good trouble.”
“Remember,” he said. “It’s Freedom Day, and because of that, every day is Freedom Day.”
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
The subtle racist motivation behind some white people insisting that “reverse discrimination” is a thing seems more rooted in the desire to elevate one’s self at the expense of others. This never really works because people who believe denigrating someone else to make them appear superior ultimately reveal themselves as small-minded and insecure. We are best when we include everyone! Every American is and always was a part of our history not just the wealthy or popular people. Poor people, Indigenous tribes, Chinese immigrants, and slaves all have stories that need to be heard. I lived a few miles north of Galveston where slaves were liberated on Juneteenth. If the reality of Juneteenth can thrive in Texas, it should be taught in all 50 states. Instead of dwelling on the stain of slavery, we can change our society! We can start by acknowledging our shared past with all the ugly and inspiring stories that an unfettered view of history affords! We should never knowingly seek ignorance over knowledge! The truth sets us all free!
Hey Kane, you have finally found a point about yourself that I’ve been trying to show you. You have not knowingly sought ignorance over knowledge. To help you out, the key word is “knowingly”.
More censorship from the Sentinel Blog. If you don’t like what I comment on then send me a personal email and tell me why! Kane has many inaccuracies in his comments. I brought them out. You, I guess, didn’t like them so I got censored.