Celebrating Pride Month and Juneteenth

Lisa Mueller
Casimir Jones, S.C.
AUTM Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee

The EDI Committee is excited to be hosting its third Watercooler to celebrate Pride Month and Juneteenth on June 12, 2024, from noon to 1 pm EST.  At first glance, it might seem a bit unusual celebrating Pride Month and Juneteenth at the same time.  However, the Committee believes that celebrating both together is the best way for the Tech Transfer community to learn more about the challenges and issues facing the LGBTQ+ and Black communities.

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, celebrates the emancipation of Black Americans from slavery in the U.S. Although President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became official on January 1, 1863, it was not until June 19, 1865, two and one-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, and two months after the Civil War ended, that those enslaved in Galveston, Texas, the westernmost state in the Confederacy, were released from slavery.  It was not until June 17, 2021, that Juneteenth became a federal holiday.

What does Juneteenth have to do with Pride Month?  Well, Pride Month began as a protest by a Black, transgender woman named Marsha P. Johnson, a prominent figure in the Stonewall Uprising of 1969.  The Stonewall Uprising was a series of events between police and LGBTQ+ protestors resulting from a police raid in a small, gay bar in New York City known as the Stonewall Inn.  While this was not the first-time police raided a gay bar or the first time LGBTQ+ people fought back during such a raid, the events that unfolded over the course of six days fundamentally changed the discourse surrounding LGBTQ+ activism in the U.S.  As a result of the Stonewall Uprising, Johnson, together with Sylvia Rivera, started Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) and became involved in advocacy for youth.  Today, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people by organizing, advocating, and creating an intentional community to heal, develop transformative leadership and promote collective power within the LGBTQ+ community.

Throughout history, the Black and LGBTQ+ communities have worked together to combat oppression, injustice and stigma.  Celebrating Pride Month and Juneteenth together provides an opportunity to learn more about the challenges and issues facing each of these communities through an intersectional lens. As Kimberle Crenshaw said during her TED talk on The Urgency of Intersectionality, “[I]f you don’t have a lens that has been trained to look at how various forms of discrimination come together, you’re unlikely to develop a set of policies that will be as inclusive as they need to be.” 

During this month, the EDI Committee encourages everyone in the Tech Transfer community to make the time to listen, learn, and become stronger allies for our Black and LGBTQ+ colleagues, not only in our respective offices, but also in our communities.  As Pearl S. Buck once said, “[I]nclusion is the only safety if we are to have a peaceful world.”