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When Union Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston on June 19, 1865, to announce that the Emancipation Proclamation would be enforced in Texas, as in the rest of the secessionist states, the newly freed men and women there gained the opportunity to become full-fledged citizens of the United States. But their joy in liberty did not last long.

Even before the last Union troops pulled out of the South, white supremacists had begun to enforce a violent and oppressive backlash against the idea that Black people could be considered equal. That backlash lasted nearly a century, until President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It seems that every period of progress toward that more perfect union is followed by a vicious backlash. And so it is that the U.S. has entered another post-Reconstruction period of determined resistance to the idea that people of color should enjoy full equality. It began in earnest with the election of the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama.

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It’s no coincidence that his tenure was followed by the election of Donald Trump, who entered the political stage as birther-in-chief, spreading the lie that Obama was not born in the United States and was, therefore, an illegitimate president. Trump followed with a presidential campaign that borrowed the rhetoric of George Wallace, with all of its white rage and resentment. Of course, not every Trump supporter harbors racial animus, but a strong element within Trump’s support remains white resentment of demographic change that would undermine white hegemony.

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This second post-Reconstruction has not, so far, been as violent as the first, which featured legally sanctioned lynchings of Black people. Still, the FBI has noted that the greatest current terror threat comes from domestic terrorists who aim their violence toward people who are not white.

Moreover, even as police violence against unarmed people of color continues, Trump has pledged to give police officers broad protections against prosecution. “I’m . . . going to indemnify all police officers and law enforcement officials throughout the United States from being destroyed by the radical left for taking strong action on crime,” he said at a rally last year.

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That would likely grant legal protection to law enforcement officers such as former Florida sheriff’s deputy Eddie Duran, who shot U.S. Air Force Airman Roger Fortson dead in his apartment last month. Duran had gone to the wrong apartment for a domestic violence call, and when Fortson answered the door with his sidearm pointed toward the floor, Duran immediately fired.

In another nod to the first post-Reconstruction period, the Republican Party has, for the last two decades, engaged in a determined campaign to make voting more difficult for those who tend to vote for Democrats, including people of color and younger voters.

While the GOP insists that it is only interested in “election security,” there are so few cases of voter fraud that it’s clear that’s not the agenda. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went so far as to start a campaign of intimidation by arresting former felons for casting a ballot, though a new law had restored their voting rights.

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With history as a guide, Juneteenth 2024 gives Black Americans cause for celebration — we’ve known more racial equality over the past several decades than ever before in American history — but also cause for deep concern. This is certainly no time for complacency. There are still too many Americans who don’t believe in a democracy that promises equal rights for all.

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