There was no better a time to release our Juneteenth collection than June 19, 2021, as the day dedicated to emancipation of enslaved people in the US had finally become an official national holiday.
Activist Opal Lee had been advocating for this very day since 2016. At age 89, Opal began walking 1,400 miles, from her hometown Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C. for the cause.
In an interview with the New York Times back in June 2020 Lee stated, “The fact is none of us are free till we’re all free.”
Flash forward one year later, Lee had a front row seat at the White House ceremony to designate Juneteenth the first new holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
The African American community which has seemingly been "cursed" with the disenfranchisement caused by the traumas of the past, modern day slavery, prison pipeline system, and countless other deterrents of progress.
However, with this design we hope to highlight the fact that being black is in fact a blessing regardless of the odds and systems stacked against us. We continue to perceiver as a community and as a people.
Black is A Blessing "B.I.A.B." Tee
Written by Precious Onukwuli