Following is the statement of Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate honoring Juneteenth Day.
“Juneteenth Day, also known as Emancipation Day, gives us a chance to look at the long distance our country has come in its treatment of African Americans — and the distance we have to go in preserving fundamental freedoms now threatened with reversal. Either by design, by ignorance or by indifference, the positive expansion of freedoms and protections for African Americans now faces new resistance. Whether it is access to the franchise or pay equity, whether it is having a fair shot at the middle class or schools that allow children to learn, these are issues that should unite all Wisconsinites, not be used as political chits to divide our citizens, which is the opposite of what Abraham Lincoln intended.”
