One year ago, at the height of 2020’s summer of struggle, celebrations of Juneteenth were embraced amidst an unprecedented global antiracist uprising in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. From New York City (NYC) to California integrated protests erupted, and members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined workers chanting “the only solution is a communist revolution.”
While the U.S. ruling class was reeling from this spontaneous, but coordinated and powerful movement, they were also plotting ways to keep the working class in chains. Fast forward to June, 2021 and U.S. President Joe Biden has called to make Juneteenth the first federal holiday since Martin Luther King, Jr. day was added in 1983.
Juneteenth, a reform worth remembering
While breaking their chains from slavery was by no means the final fightback for Black workers in the U.S., Juneteenth remains a celebration of worker power and radical social change.
Prior to the end of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the U.S. experienced over 350 organized uprisings, led by enslaved workers, some of which (NY Plot of 1741, Gabriel’s Plot of 1800) involved a multiracial cast of conspirators. This culminated most famously in John Brown’s 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, becoming the spark igniting the Civil War.  
On June 19, 1865, now known as Juneteenth, a Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas with the belated news that slavery and the Civil War were over.
The arrival of these troops came two months after the end of the Civil War and a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which in reality didn’t free any workers from slavery (History.com).
The Civil War in many ways is the blueprint for splits in the U.S. ruling class and exemplifies that Republican or Democrat—Northerner or Southerner—the bosses will only ever prioritize profit and capital. Lincoln was not looking to end slavery becuase he was antiracist, but rather slavery no longer served the needs of the northern, financial and industrial ruling class. The northern rulers needed a united country to pursue their worldwide imperialist ambitions.
It is this same thinking that has led Biden and his liberal fascist lackeys to celebrate Juneteenth.
Following emancipation there was a brief period known as Reconstruction, a veiled reckoning of the last 250 years of racist enslavement. These “efforts” however, lasted only until the Northern ruling class was certain that hostile southern rivals would never again seize hold of federal power.
Once Reconstruction was no longer useful to maintain momentary “peace” for the ruling class and multi-racial unity amongst poor farmers Black and white was budding, (Steven Hahn, Roots of Southern Populism) Jim Crow was fastened on the South and the standard of living there for all Southern workers, Black and white, fell to the lowest levels anywhere in the U.S. where they remain to this day (Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us).
Black capitalism—still capitalism
In addition to championing Juneteenth, many celebrations this year commemorated the state-sponsored genocidal destruction of the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, also known as the Tulsa Massacre.
The bosses’ media conveniently under-emphasized the central role the Tulsa police played in orchestrating the horror that wiped out uncounted hundreds of Black workers and instead  placed front and center the destruction of a Black business district called ‘Black Wall Street.’ Black capitalism and Black Excellence are ways the ruling class aims to not only segregate workers across race lines but also suck us into thinking capitalism can work for the working class.
Bemoaning the loss of ‘Black Wall Street’ above and beyond the loss of Black lives is just another way the ruling class is twisting the history of U.S. racism to divert the rebellious and egalitarian spirit of antiracist workers and youth.
When the working class called to abolish police and racist murder, the ruling class gave them Black owned businesses, murals, and Juneteenth.The best Black capitalism can offer Black workers or any worker is a Black exploiter in place of a white one.  
Don’t let imperialists co-opt and pervert antiracism
Between the remembrance of the Tulsa Massacre, mourning Black Wall Street, and Juneteenth preparations, the racist U.S. ruling class’ media frenzy peaked when the NYT’s main Black opinion columnist, Charles Blow, published a piece on June 16: “The World’s Dictators Exploit America’s Racism.” Blow’s dishonesty and cynicism knows no bounds. Amidst a bumbling Biden’s G-7 effort to bring the rotting cadaver of U.S. imperialism back to life (see editorial), Blow lamented the fact that U.S. ‘leadership’ is eroded and left unable to fight global “dictators” for… “no matter how bad these dictators act on the world stage ...they are not completely wrong in their condemnation of American racism” (NYT 6/21).
Blow grieves that despite the havoc U.S. competitors wreak on the workers of their own nations they will always be able to leverage U.S. racism to shut down criticism of human rights abuses as rank hypocrisy. But don’t be fooled.  His calls for antiracism are not in service of the working class, but rather, are in service of a U.S. empire he promotes despite it’s murderous and racist agenda.
Blow calls for the U.S. to show just enough remorse to resuscitate global superpower status. With that status he and the entire U.S. ruling class will betray and devour the Black working class in imperialist carnage, as surely as the Northern industrial ruling class betrayed antiracist abolitionism and terrorized Black workers even as it left most white workers in grinding poverty after Reconstruction.  
Revolutionary emancipation—finish the job, Join PLP
As seen through social media and conversations on the streets, workers are not fooled by the thin veil of a Juneteenth holiday supported by the likes of senators Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell who have led the charge in promoting racism.   
Yes, some sworn enemies of Juneteenth are gutter and open racists, but that does not mean the working class should walk blindly into the open arms of liberal fascists like Biden, Kamala Harris, and their army waiting to reinforce our chains. Juneteenth, as a vision of emancipation, is worth remembering but the imperialists can only betray the cause of emancipation.   
A Red Army guided by communist ideas is the only force that can finish the job Juneteenth, and Black worker uprisings during slavery started. This time we will emancipate all labor from capitalist wage slavery.
Our critique of Juneteenth, the holiday, does not take away one bit from the bravery of the multi-racial fighters, men and women, who fought and died for a vision of freedom. And it does not disrespect those who fought for the right to vote by saying that we will never vote our way out of capitalism and its horrors.  
We must hold on to the lesson that defeat of a ruling class through armed struggle is the only way freedom has ever been won. The full victory of communism means we will have recognized this class enemy in all the varied forms it presents itself and smash its grip on our class one struggle after another until this enemy is no more.  
This is Progressive Labor Party’s road to revolution. Join us!