MSU Scholars Reflect on the Sustained Significance and Impact of Juneteenth

<p>In this edition of the <a href="http://go.msu.edu/episodes">MSU Today</a> podcast, four MSU scholars discuss the sustained significance and impact of <a href="https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2021/ask-the-expert-what-is-juneteenth">Juneteenth</a>.</p><p>“I am not one who grew up participating in or knowing about Juneteenth,” says Dr. <a href="https://aaas.msu.edu/tamura-lomax/">Tamura Lomax</a> (she/her), Foundational Associate Professor in MSU’s Department of African American and African Studies (<a href="http://aaas.msu.edu">AAAS</a>). “I didn't learn about it until sometime in high school in California. I lived my life between California and New York. And I'd never heard about it in New York, but in California I remember hearing something about it but not really understanding what it is.”</p><p>Lomax explains what she means when, as a historian, she says the thing about Juneteenth that strikes her is the multiple attempts at freedom.</p><p>“What's important to me is that, yes, Juneteenth is a celebration, but there's still this delayed sense of gratification in terms of freedom. So that's what's important to me in terms of my work, in terms of noting that. And noting how Black folks free and enslaved have been forced to navigate, this idea of freedom while living a life that is truly within a context of unfreedom.”</p><p>Dr. Shondra L Marshall (she/her) is a national president of <a href="https://www.msuba.org/">MSU Black Alumni</a>. </p><p>“I would like to salute the student body and all the excellent and phenomenal work they’re doing at MSU. We push, and we move forward. MSU Black Alumni was officially founded in 1980. Under my administration, I have elevated three areas of organizational focus. They are engagement, enhancement, and evolvement. We have an endowment which includes several named endowments at the institution. And that actually was started off at one of our first homecoming events in October of 1980. At that event, they passed around a pumpkin and they raised money, which included $100