There is a lot to celebrate in June. In the United States of America, Father's Day and the federal holiday, Juneteenth, are both on June 19, and June is also the LGBTIQ+ Pride in many countries worldwide[1]. (For a list of Father's Day celebrations around the world, visit When Is Father's Day This Year in Different Countries? (thespruce.com))
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The fathers of the United States have Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, to thank for our Father's Day observance. In 1910, Sonora worked very diligently to establish a celebration equal to Mother's Day for dads. She visited spiritual communities, the YMCA, shopkeepers, and government officials to drum up support for her idea. And she succeeded. Washing State celebrated the nation's first statewide Father's Day on June 19, 1910. Father's Day became a national holiday in 1972.
Thank you, Sonora Dodd, for having a
vision and sticking with it until it became a reality.
June 19 is also the United States federal holiday commemorating
the freedom of the last enslaved people in Texas. Although it has roots in the
1860s, it only recently became a federal holiday when in 2021, President Joe Biden
signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
Juneteenth celebrations sometimes include reading the Emancipation Proclamation
made by President Abraham Lincoln, a moderately conservative Republican with a
moderately social-liberal political philosophy in terms of social justice, federal
power, and equal rights. He proclaimed,
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the
power in me vested – do order and declare…[skipping to the third paragraph]…That on January
1, in the year of our Lord, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, [referring to states in rebellion against the
United States of America] shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and
the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress
such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual
freedom.
It was not until two years later,
when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, that the state's
residents learned that slavery had been abolished.
It's noteworthy that a proclamation had to be made to state what is a
self-evident spiritual truth. And more remarkable that it would take 157 years
before Juneteenth would become a federal holiday acknowledging freedom.
I'm reminded that in spiritual practice, we are to declare the self-evident
spiritual truth and keep our eyes on that truth. However, the world may take a
moment to catch up. All the while, never waiver from the truth; even when Black,
Indigenous, and People of Color continue to suffer discrimination, harmful
cultural stereotyping, and systemic racism, we are to keep our eye on the
self-evident truth of equality and keep moving toward it. Like Bayard Rustin did.
Bayard was an openly gay African American leader for civil rights who, in
1941, marched on Washington to press for an end to racial discrimination in
employment. He organized Freedom Rides to raise awareness that racial discrimination
had not yet ended, even though it was proclaimed to be over and done in 1863. So
many years later, discrimination had not ended. So Bayard Rustin couldn't rest.
He helped organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to support Dr.
Martin Luther King and introduced Dr. King to Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent
resistance and civil disobedience philosophy.
He didn't give up when the world didn't seem to be catching up to the
self-evident truth. He carried on, and later in life, he stood up for equality
for LGBTIQ+ people. He was criticized and targeted because of his sexuality. Politicians
threatened to tell the press that he and Dr. King were gay lovers, so Bayard
usually acted behind the scenes. But he couldn't give up.
Thank you, Bayard Rustin, for having a
vision and sticking with it until more of it became a reality, and may we stand
for that vision until all of it is real.
I'm celebrating this Father's Day, Juneteenth, and Pride month by remembering
to stay the course even though the world may not have caught up yet. I'm
remembering to declare the self-evident spiritual truth and to keep moving
toward it. I'm remembering to affirm, recognize, and align with the
self-evident spiritual truth and to not waiver from it though the world may take
a moment, a decade, or a century to catch up with the reality that all people
are equal and that love is love, and that equality is not a special right
"The proof that
one truly believes is in action."
– Bayard Rustin
"The real
radical is that person who has a vision of equality and is willing to do those
things that will bring reality closer to that vision."
– Bayard Rustin
"When I dare to
be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it makes
no difference whether or
not I
am afraid."
– Audre Lorde
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