Anti-racism workplace educators: Juneteenth is an opportunity for sustained change beyond just one holiday

Juneteenth, a day of remembrance commemorating the day the last enslaved people in the US were freed in Texas, is fast-approaching, and as we’ve already seen, corporate attempts to mark the occasion have the potential to backfire. This year, as more organizations prepare to honor the holiday for the first time, some advocates and educators are urging employers to go beyond what they see as merely performative allyship.

Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday in 2021 by President Biden, and ahead of the proclamation, just 9% of employers surveyed said they planned to observe the holiday, according to data from asset management firm Mercer. Regardless of whether employees have the day off, DE&I experts said employers can still use this as a moment to have transparent conversations with Black employees.

Step back. Joquina Reed, a founder of J. Reed Consulting, which brings a justice component to workplace DE&I efforts, said that recognizing Juneteenth in the workplace can be complicated. “What people often want is, like, a checklist. There is no checklist that easily sums up 400-plus years of oppression…They need to acknowledge that this one day cannot account for all of those things.”

While some employers have seen firsthand how their attempts at acknowledging Juneteenth can be perceived by some as tokenism or worse, Kim Crowder, founder and CEO of Kim Crowder Consulting, which focuses on DE&I employer consulting, told HR Brew via email that there are sensible ways for organizations to observe Juneteenth. Outside of giving employees the day off, companies should, in Crowder’s opinion, provide employees with space to observe the day in a way that is most healing for them.

“Some team members do not want to discuss the impact of this day with other team members,” Crowder explained, adding that “it can also be painful to face the reality of the fact that some enslaved people did not receive freedom for two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.”

Reed says that employers should reflect during this time and start having what she calls “the ugly conversations.” She explains that the concept of “transformative transparency” goes beyond companies’ disclosing things like charitable giving and should extend to potentially more uncomfortable topics, such as pay transparency, that allow Black employees “spaces [to ask] tough questions.”

Zoom out. Reed points out that one of the ways organizations get it wrong is when they expect Black employees to educate their non-Black peers. With Juneteenth, “Black people are gonna be asked to do a lot of things, and one of those things is, ‘Well, tell us about your experience with police. Or tell us about your experience with racism. Or tell us about what happens in the grocery store.’ And expecting and putting the onus on Black folks to activate non-Black people’s empathy, even in a space where what we’re going through is supposed to be centered...that’s not our job.”

Reed recommended that HR leaders stand back and learn from multiple people with “lived experiences” and ask themselves several questions: “How often do you listen to experts with lived experiences? And then how often are you listening to folks on the ground with lived experiences?” According to Reed, leaders in organizations should recognize that one person can’t speak for everyone, so “how do you get more comfortable…to various perspectives from various Black people? How do we make sure we create spaces where that is not a special event, but it is part of our organizational culture?”

Crowder and Reed urged employers to go beyond focusing on a single day. Instead, Crowder said, “I hope that we move from celebrating special holidays to focusing on the daily practices that help rectify the impact that created the reason for us to celebrate Juneteenth in the first place.”