JUNETEENTH 2026

 Pino closings Monday. Maybe we will watch. Maybe not. 

Our 2021 Juneteenth post admitted our ignorance. We knew little or nothing about the day and its meaning.  We become stronger when we own our failings. 

We did not know and do not know what it means to be the descendants of slaves.  What it means to be immediately judged when you walk into a room because of the color of your skin instead of the content of your character. 

But we learned about what people who would become our brothers and sisters others felt and experienced. 

And you know what we decided? That diversity, equity, and inclusion is a good idea, not a bad one. That when President Lincoln formed a cabinet of a "team of rivals" he was endorsing the idea that accepting and respecting our differences makes us stronger.  Listening to others and honoring their lives is a good thing, not a bad thing. 

That when President John Kennedy said during his commencement address to the American University in Washington DC in 1963 that "Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we all are mortal" he was eloquently explaining that our humanness envelopes our petty differences. 

There are many holidays we do not partake in. Christmas. Ramadan. St. Crispins Day. The list goes on and on. But we respect those who do celebrate those days. We have been to midnight mass, invited by friends. We have broken bread on El ad-Fitr with our Muslim brothers and sisters, and of course we read Henry V on October 25 for the poetic summary of the closeness of those sharing an ideal worth dying for. 

So to our brothers and sisters who celebrate June 19 with friends and family and gather to remember, and to enjoy traditional dishes, we thank you for including us in your celebrations and allowing our journey from ignorance to understanding to continue. 

And (being Rumpole) we could not resist in leaving you with these words spoken before the Battle of Agincourt: 

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.