Giving Compass' Take:

• Juneteenth marks the celebration of freeing the last enslaved people in the United States. Still, the legacy of slavery and racism continues in America through poverty, incarceration, and homelessness. 

• How can donors understand and respond to racial disparities in their communities? How are you seeking justice to address the structural racism that still exists in American society? 

•  Read about the role of data in ending structural racism. 


Friday, June 19 marks the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, Emancipation Day, Liberation Day, and Jubilee Day. On this day in 1865, two years after the formal issue of the Emancipation Proclamation, the last enslaved people, living in Galveston, Texas, were finally made aware of their status as freedmen. Approximately 250,000 Black people were liberated on this day, and the following year, the first Juneteenth celebration was held, commemorating the day on which the last slaves were freed. Today, Juneteenth is celebrated as a marker of the end of slavery in the US, and most major cities acknowledge it as a day of observance.

However, while the last enslaved people were technically set free in 1865, the legacy of slavery persists, continuing to affect the Black community in particularly insidious ways, including the overrepresentation of Black people among those experiencing homelessness.

Black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as their White counterparts to experience poverty; 5.4 times as likely as Whites to become incarcerated; twice as likely to be unemployed; about half as likely as White people to have a college degree; and on average have about one-tenth the wealth of White households. Individually, each of these factors contribute to lasting inequities, but taken together, they form a near-guarantee that Black people will continue to experience homelessness at disproportionately high rates.

Black people make up 13 percent of the US population, yet more than forty percent of people without permanent homes are Black. This means that Black people are more than three times as likely as the general population to become homeless. Before ever even entering our system, Black people face consistent discrimination and are unjustly barred from opportunity.

A key step in this process is to determine what racial disparities exist in your community by beginning to track and analyze demographic data, followed by carefully implementing action steps in both the short and long term to address these disparities.

Read the full article about Juneteenth and homelessness by Tianna Kelly at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.