Juneteenth Message Black Freedom MSR CEO Publisher

A Message From Our Publisher: Freedom Is Not a Finished Project, But It Is Ours to Carry Forward

In a Juneteenth message to MSR readers, CEO and Publisher Tracey Williams-Dillard reflects on the gap between the promise and the reality of freedom, the urgency of this political moment and the Spokesman-Recorder's more than 88-year commitment to bearing witness to Black life in the Twin Cities.

On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned what had been true for two and a half years: that they were free. The Emancipation Proclamation had been signed in January 1863, but freedom, as Black Americans have always known, is not simply declared. It must be delivered. And too often, it has been delayed.

That gap, between the promise and the reality, is what Juneteenth asks us to sit with. Not to dampen the celebration, but to deepen it. Because when we understand what our ancestors endured, and what they built in spite of it, the joy becomes something more: it becomes testimony.

This year, that testimony feels especially urgent. We are living through a political moment that is testing the durability of hard-won freedoms in our schools, in our courts, in our communities. Across the country, the tools of democracy are being challenged. The stories of Black Americans are being erased from curricula. The very language of equity is under assault. In Minnesota and beyond, our people are being asked to fight battles we thought we had already won.

For more than 88 years, the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder has stood as a witness to Black life in the Twin Cities, in all of its complexity, its grief and its glory. We have covered the movements and the milestones, the injustices and the breakthroughs. We have told the stories that others overlooked, amplified voices that deserved to be heard, and held the powerful accountable when no one else would.

Black excellence is not a response to oppression. It is its own declaration. It exists not to prove anything to anyone, but because our people have always possessed gifts worth sharing and dreams worth pursuing. We see that excellence every week in the pages of this paper: in our students, our entrepreneurs, our artists, our elders, our athletes, and our advocates. We see it in the work of every community member who refuses to let this moment define what is possible.

As we celebrate Juneteenth, I want to thank you, our readers, for your continued trust in the MSR. You are the reason this paper exists. You are the community we serve, the stories we tell, and the future we are fighting for.