What Juneteenth Can Teach Philanthropy About Freedom
Freedom delayed is freedom denied. And some folks have built entire careers on that delay.
Last weekend, I read adrienne maree brown’s We Will Not Cancel Us in one sitting. It’s that good. It got me thinking about transformative justice, not just as a response to harm and abuse, but as a lens for understanding how those in power fight like hell to preserve it. And nowhere is this desperate self-preservation clearer than in how freedom has been delayed and controlled throughout American history.
June 19, 1865. Two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. That’s how long it took for news of freedom to reach slaves in Texas. Two and a half years of continued enslavement after liberation was supposedly declared. Two and a half years of people who could have been free remaining in bondage because those in power controlled the flow of information and decided that freedom would only come on their terms.
This week, as my social media timelines flood with Juneteenth posts featuring beautiful graphics about freedom, quotes about justice, and commitments to equity, I ask myself: how many of these institutions celebrating freedom today are the ones inadvertently systematizing its denial, and sabotaging the liberation they claim to champion?
Freedom delayed is freedom denied. And some folks have built entire careers on that delay.
The Philanthropy of Delayed Freedom
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of institutions have genuinely done the work. Major foundations, such as Ford and Open Society, have invested billions in promoting (racial) equity. Organizations like the Equal Justice Initiative have transformed how we understand criminal justice reform. Nonprofits focused on voting rights, such as Black Voters Matter, and economic justice, like the National Domestic Workers Alliance, have built genuine power and won concrete victories. Even some corporations have DEI initiatives that have evolved beyond performative gestures to advance a more inclusive economy, such as JPMorgan Chase & Co.
But for every foundation funding grassroots organizers, how many are still operating like charitable saviors? For every organization building community power, how many are just (barely) diversifying their boards while keeping the same top-down structures?
I know we can’t fix all the world’s problems, nor should that be the expectation. But if you’re going to claim liberation as your mission, then actually liberate. Just like those who withheld news of emancipation in Texas, too many philanthropic institutions control the pace of change to serve their own agendas. We get symbolic recognition instead of structural transformation. If you’re about change, then BE about it.
And communities are told to just be grateful for any progress, be patient with the process, and be understanding about all the “red tape” and “institutional constraints.” What I hear the message to communities is: Freedom comes when we decide you’re ready for it, in the form we deem appropriate, at the pace we can manage.
What Transformative Justice Demands
Reading brown’s work reminded me that transformative justice is about building systems that don’t create harm as best as humanly possible. It’s about responding to communities and knowing “how to belong to each other, to something big and collective and decolonizing,” as brown says.
Throughout my journey with this newsletter so far, I’ve been expressing how our current systems are broken. But after reading this book, maybe I’ve been wrong. They’re not broken. They’re working exactly as designed. The conditional nature of support shows that these aren’t issues. They are features. They ensure that power remains concentrated while appearing to address injustice.
brown explains that transformative justice calls for us to engage in principled struggle, which “is when we are struggling for the sake of something larger than ourselves and honest and direct with each other while holding compassion.” For our sectors, that should look like:
Moving faster. Not because urgency means reckless action, but because people are suffering right now. Every day we spend in endless strategic planning sessions and cocktail hours with funders is another day that communities go without the resources they need. The pace of change in philanthropy is often dictated by the comfort level of those who benefit from the status quo, not the urgency felt by those experiencing systemic oppression.
Going deeper. Surface-level changes, such as land acknowledgments and statements of solidarity, are beneficial. Still, they often just make institutions feel better about themselves, something we’re just “supposed “ to do, without addressing the root causes. Real transformation requires examining who makes decisions, how resources are allocated, what assumptions guide our work, and whose voices are centered or silenced.
Letting communities lead. This isn’t just about check-ins and impact reports. It’s about genuine power-sharing that makes those of us in institutional roles uncomfortable. It means funding strategies we may not fully understand, supporting leaders we might not choose but have the deepest trust with their communities, and accepting that our expertise might not be the most applicable.
The Root Causes We’re Not Naming
Transformative justice also demands that we examine the systems that make harm inevitable, not just individual acts of it. In philanthropy, we should assess:
The savior complex embedded in our very existence. The idea that communities need to be “helped” rather than supported in their own liberation efforts. The assumption that external resources and expertise are more valuable than knowledge and leadership at the community level.
The extractive nature of our relationships. How we leverage communities for stories and data while maintaining decision-making power. How we ask people to constantly showcase their trauma and resilience for our boards and donors. How we treat communities as beneficiaries rather than partners.
The ways we wield scarcity. This is a big one. We create competition between organizations and communities for limited resources instead of questioning why resources are limited in the first place. Using funding restrictions and reporting requirements to maintain control.
The comfort we take in incremental change. How “progress” often serves to relieve public pressure without addressing systemic issues. How we celebrate small wins while ignoring the larger systems that make those wins feel insufficient.
What Freedom Requires
If we’re serious about supporting freedom, and not just talking about it on Juneteenth, philanthropy needs to confront these uncomfortable truths:
Liberation can’t be controlled or managed. It doesn’t follow strategic plans or logic models. It’s messy, unpredictable, and often threatens the systems that philanthropy depends on.
Freedom is not a gift to be granted. It’s a right to be honored and a power to be shared. The communities we claim to serve don’t need our permission to be free. They need us to stop participating in systems that constrain their freedom.
Transformation requires sacrifice from those who benefit from current systems. Real change means those of us with institutional power giving up some of that power. Not just redirecting it, but letting it go.
Moving Beyond Symbolic Recognition
Juneteenth is a poignant reminder of what delayed freedom looks like and its lasting costs, even 160 years later. It’s a call to explore our own roles in systems that promise freedom while maintaining control.
The slaves in Texas shouldn’t have had to wait two and a half years for their freedom. They needed those in power to act on what they already knew was right. Today’s communities shouldn’t have to wait for organizations to finish their “journey toward equity” or complete their “organizational theory of change” first.
They need us to act now on what we already know: that freedom can’t wait.
brown writes:
“We need to transform ourselves to transform the world to be transformed in the service of the work. Movements need to become the practice ground for what we are healing towards, co-creating. Movements are responsible for embodying what we are inviting our people into. We need the people within our movements, all socialized into and by unjust systems, to be on liberation paths. Not already free, but practicing freedom every day. Not already beyond harm, but accountable for doing our individual and internal work to end harm and engage in generative conflict, which includes actively working to gain awareness of the ways we can and have harmed each other, where we have significant political differences, and where we can end cycles of harm and unprincipled struggle in ourselves and our communities.”
I think for us, this means we can’t keep building movements and organizations that replicate the same power structures we’re fighting against. It means redistributing power to the communities most impacted by the issues we aim to address by following their lead. It means being honest about the ways we’ve been socialized into harmful patterns and doing the internal work to change them, rather than assuming good intentions are enough. It means that accountability must be real and ongoing. And it means recognizing that if we’re not actively practicing the liberation we profess, then we’re perpetuating the same harmful systems. The transformation must start with us, within us, and among us.
Perhaps this is all too radical, but radical problems require radical solutions. History has taught us that freedom requires action, not patience. And communities have been patient long enough.
Note: adrienne maree brown’s book talks about transformative justice in the context of Call-Out Culture. My work is not a call-out. It’s a critique. By brown’s definition, a critique is:
“An analysis or assessment of someone’s work or practices. Critique ideally helps us grow collectively by detailed engagement with what comes into the public sphere as writing, creation, behavior. Critiques can help us grow and transform that which can be shaped. Critique doesn’t need resolution but acceptance and discernment—you won’t please everyone, take what can grow you and keep it moving. Critiques are part of how we sharpen each other.”
Girl - another great piece. I’ve shared it with a few friend. Thank you for writing this. ❤️ Happy Juneteenth!!
I'm so grateful for your writing. This statement really impacted me: we can’t keep building movements and organizations that replicate the same power structures we’re fighting against. So much work to do.