Category: Diversity & Inclusion

On Juneteenth

Image by breefulmelange from Pixabay

Last year, President Biden declared Juneteenth a new Federal Holiday.  Since it fell on a Saturday, the observance was scheduled for the Friday following the President’s declaration on Thursday.  Unfortunately, I was already on a business trip to Washington, D.C., and it was too late to take advantage of the holiday. 

This year is different, and I recognize that I know the basics of the day—it marked the date the last slaves were set free from Galveston, Texas—but little more.  As a white guy, I don’t have to know that part of history.  It’s part of my privilege to determine whether or not I want to learn more…and I do, so I started to dig deeper using a Google search, and I learned that slaves weren’t finally free until a full 2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and 2 months after the end of the civil war!

Seeking to learn even more, I found the book On Juneteenth, written by Annette Gordon-Reed—a Harvard University Professor and Author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.  Reed penned this book during the summer of 2020 when she was on lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Abby Wambach’s The Wolfpack Way: How Women Can Come Together, Unleash Power, & Change the Game

The first Wednesday in February is celebrated as National Girls and Women in Sports Day—a day devoted to breaking gender stereotypes built around the sports industry.  To honor the day, let’s listen to Abby Wambach: a decorated soccer champion, who scored more international goals than any other player—man or woman—in history.  She won two Olympic gold medals and a FIFA World Cup championship.

After her retirement, Barnard College asked her to give a commencement speech.  Barnard is a private women’s liberal arts college in New York City, founded in 1889 as a response to Columbia University’s refusal to admit women.

Wambach’s thoughts turned to a TED Talk about the wolves of Yellowstone National Park. In 1995, wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone after being absent for seventy years. It was a controversial decision, but rangers decided it was a risk worth taking, because the land was in trouble.

The results: The plant ecosystem regenerated. The animal ecosystem regenerated. The entire landscape changed. All because of the wolves’ presence. See what happened there? The wolves—who were feared by many to be a threat to the system—became the system’s salvation.

In the same way, women—who are feared by many to be a threat to our system—will become our society’s salvation. As Wambach put it, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. WE. ARE. THE. WOLVES. Throughout my life, my Wolfpack was my soccer team. Now, my Wolfpack is All Women Everywhere.”

The message Wambach shared with the Barnard women is this, “Women must stop following the Old Rules, which exist only to maintain the status quo. If we follow the rules we’ve always followed, the game will remain the same. Old ways of thinking will never help us build a new world. Out with the Old. In with the New. Welcome to the Wolfpack Way—8 New Rules that will change the game.”

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