Juneteenth 2020

In June of 2020, the Sierra Club formally recognized Juneteenth, the ending of slavery in the United States, as a a symbol of Black freedom and Black resistance, centering Black people’s unique contribution to the struggle for justice and equity in the United States—a struggle that still persists today.

This weekend, June 19-21, we're joining the Movement for Black Lives in a Juneteenth mobilization in your community, in Washington, DC, and from your own home. Together we join in the calls to defund the police, invest in Black communities, and call for Trump’s resignation.
Find a Juneteenth event near you

Dear Supporter,

On June 19, 1865, enslaved Black communities in Texas finally received the news that they were free -- two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and three months since the end of the Civil War.

Juneteenth (June 19th) is a day that honors Black freedom and Black resistance, and centers Black people’s unique contribution to the struggle for justice in the U.S. This year, Juneteenth is a rare moment for our communities to proclaim in one voice that Black Lives Matter, and that we won’t tolerate anything less than justice for all our people.

The white supremacist, tragic recent murders of Rayshard Brooks, Tony McDade, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless others have renewed global demands for justice. We cannot stand by while our governments continue to fund an excessive, brutal, and discriminatory system of policing with our tax dollars.

We at Sierra Club are following the lead of the Movement for Black Lives in mobilizing people across the country THIS WEEKEND to defend Black lives. Will you join us?

Join us this weekend for a Six Nineteen event in your community, or plan to participate virtually from your home. If you don't see an event near you, check back often! Events are being added all the time. 

You can also pledge your support for the Movement for Black Lives here.

We join the Movement for Black Lives and the Six Nineteen mobilization in these three demands:

  1. Defund the Police
  2. Invest in Black Communities
  3. Call for Donald Trump’s Resignation
Part of Sierra Club's mission is to fight for safe and healthy communities -- and this includes safety from police violence. The call for defunding the police means shifting massive spending on police that do not keep us safe -- and specifically terrorizes communities of color -- and reinvesting it in a shared vision of community safety that actually works. This will not happen overnight. It will happen through a thoughtful, deliberate, and participatory process.

The bottom line is that white supremacy is a matter of life and death specifically for Black people and the planet.

As one of the largest climate and environmental justice advocacy organizations, part of the Sierra Club’s mandate is to ensure that oppressed communities receive justice and experience the benefits of a healthy and sustainable future. We can never forget that the roots of the climate crisis lie in racism, land-theft, pillaging, colonialism, and patriarchy.

We must not ignore that the pain of these injustices is still felt today in too many ways: Black people have been disproportionately devastated by COVID-19, live with disproportionately higher levels of toxic pollution, and disproportionately face extreme weather of powerful storms, floods, heat waves, wildfires, and droughts.

Enough is enough. Join the Six Nineteen mobilization this weekend as we rise to defend Black lives. Find an event near you at sixnineteen.com

In solidarity,

Hop Hopkins
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Sierra Club

P.S. A note about COVID-19:
We recognize and want to emphasize that we are still in the middle of a pandemic and public health crisis. Before deciding to participate in person at an event near you, please assess the risks based on your personal health and your local community's guidelines. If you do decide to attend in person, please wear a mask, use hand sanitizer often, and maintain 6 or more feet distance from others outside your household.

There will also be opportunities for you to participate from your home - in the coming days, check back at sc.org/sixnineteen for more information. You may also share the mobilization and the Movement for Black Lives' demands on social media with hashtags #DefendBlackLives and #SixNineteen.

The COVID-19 crisis has not passed and continues to disproportionately harm  Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people and other communities of color. The pandemic has revealed how the communities hardest hit are often the same communities that suffer from high levels of pollution and poor access to healthcare. The fight for environmental justice cannot be separated from the fight for racial justice.