Juneteenth’s recognition as a federal holiday is a significant acknowledgment of history, but it also reflects how commemoration can sometimes simplify complex realities. It is a commemoration of the day Major General Gordon Granger announced the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War. The announcement took place two months after the Civil War, and many enslaved Texans were aware that the war had ended and the Union reigned victorious. However, they also understood that the federal government was not enforcing the law. It was clear to them that those who forced them to work without compensation would not end their system of slavery without institutional force.

General Order Three, the law issued to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, cautioned the recently emancipated against gathering at military posts and emphasized the importance of avoiding idleness. Newly freed persons were advised to remain at their homes quietly and were forced to continue working relentlessly, often without compensation. General Order Three made clear that emancipation was conditional—freedom did not come with full autonomy, as newly freed Black people were advised to remain where they were and continue working under exploitative conditions. The historical event itself speaks to the partial, conditional nature of emancipation, revealing that freedom, when dictated by state decree, is often tempered by restraint, surveillance, and coercion.

While Juneteenth rightfully celebrates the end of slavery, it often overlooks the broader continuum of racial oppression that followed—sharecropping, convict leasing, Jim/Jane Crow segregation, and today’s carceral system. Understanding these connections is crucial for recognizing how structural inequalities persist and how the struggles against them continue. Rather than just marking the occasion, there is an opportunity to use Juneteenth as a moment for deeper reflection, imagination, and education, ensuring that it serves as more than just symbolic recognition.

Such a legacy is how our Dreaming with the Archives initiative came into fruition. 

Juneteenth 2025 marks the opening of this reimagined landscape—an opportunity to engage with dreams of freedom through art and collective memory. What gets remembered shapes what is possible. What if we could rewrite the American story, starting with the stories that were left out?

In this newsletter, we're diving into our Dreaming with the Archives initiative, and we'll share ways you can engage IRL and online.

Dreaming with the Archives

Dreaming with the Archives is a multi-city initiative from Kinfolk Tech that reimagines collective memory as a tool for healing, liberation, and future-building. This work extends beyond honoring the past—it actively designs what comes next. As James Baldwin once wrote, "People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them."

This initiative recognizes that our communities have always been sites of radical imagination and resistance. Ruha Benjamin reminds us that imagination is not merely wishful thinking but a practice of envisioning and creating the worlds we need. She wrote, “Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.” Our past holds the blueprints for transformation, and our communities possess the agency to preserve, share, and build upon these vital stories and histories.

This initiative centers two essential questions:

• What futures can we imagine beyond today's systems?

• What stories must we preserve to build them?

Launching this Juneteenth, Dreaming with the Archives unfolds through digital monuments, immersive exhibitions, community imagination workshops, walking tours, and teach-ins in New York City, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and virtual spaces. We will transform archival histories into portals—spaces for bold imagination, radical possibility, and living truth.

Through Dreaming with the Archives, Kinfolk Tech invites communities to engage with, preserve, and reimagine their histories as catalysts for the systemic changes needed for a more just and equitable future. Imagination cannot serve as a luxury for a privileged few. It is a necessity for our survival—a practice that allows us to envision worlds beyond our current systems toward collective freedom and joy. Our communities have always practiced this radical imagination, carrying forward the wisdom of ancestors while nurturing the seeds of liberation. In collaboration with our partners, we seek to re-dream capitalism, oppression, and white supremacy in ways that feel expansive, playful, and joyful.

We invite you to join us as Dreaming with the Archives features programming that explores the following Zones of Imagination: Memory Justice, Digital Justice, Collective Power, Reparations, and Radical Futures. Our upcoming programming and exhibitions will explore and reflect the possibilities within each zone.

By surfacing the stories of place—past and present—we do more than preserve memory. We reshape history, connect generations, and create new paths forward. Community agency drives this work; our people have always been the keepers and creators of our most vital narratives. We’re building memory infrastructure for a future shaped by all of us. We want you to build it with us!

Altar to our Ancestors

Join us on Saturday, June 21 at Brooklyn Bridge Park (Pier 1, The Granite Prospect) for a live altar to our ancestors — past, present, and future — and to the abundant flora, fauna, agriculture, skilled laborers, and the sounds that make up the rich cultural history and ecology of Brooklyn.

As you move through the park, your mobile device becomes a portal through which to encounter immersive monuments created by visionary artists Ari Melenciano, Olalekan Jeyifous, Kiyan Williams, Wangechi Mutu, Jeremiah Ojo, and Hank Willis Thomas. Please RSVP for the exhibition opening celebration of Dreaming with the Archives (June 19-August 30) here: https://lu.ma/6xlahph0 

Join us for the Opening Celebration and an artist panel with Olalekan Jeyifous, Ari Melenciano, and Jeremiah Ojo, moderated by American Artist on June 21, 5 pm.

​Take a guided walking tour of the exhibition before the talk at 3:30pm, and immediately following the artist conversation. The celebration will be opened by a poetry reading from Flatbush-born and raised poet Diane Exavier, who created an original poem for one of the AR monuments.

If you are interested in being a part of our Dreaming with the Archives initiative, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Until next time,

ravon, idris, and the Kinfolk team

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