Axios, June 2024
Juneteenth’s popularity is encouraging more descendants of enslaved people to research their families’ history and visit “sites of memory” linked to enslavement, experts tell Axios.
The big picture: Never before in U.S. history have descendants been able to easily access so many historic family documents online, thanks to improvements in technology, AI, DNA tests and genealogy websites.
- The National Park Service, nonprofit groups and some states have also better mapped or transformed historic sites connected to enslavement.
- “While we are looking at how African Americans honor Juneteenth by celebrating our future, we’re also tipping our hat to a past that speaks to a liberation or freedom tradition,” Samuel Livingston, professor of Africana Studies at Morehouse College, tells Axios.
