President Barack Obama’s presidential museum/center opened to the public on June 19, 2026. The Juneteenth federal holiday choice was deliberate, and the nation’s first Black president used the Center’s dedication ceremony the day before to emphasize how we all can work “to write the next chapter of our [country’s] story.” That, of course, includes taxes, too. (Photo by AlphaBeta135, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)
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When Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, to tell enslaved people there that they were free (and had been for two years; oh, Texas…), it was a time to celebrate.
However, that initial Juneteenth joy 161 years ago was followed by the travails of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, noted The Weeknight co-host Symone Sanders Townsend, speaking from the June18 dedication of the Obama Presidential Center.
That’s why the physical commemoration of the United States’ first Black President officially opened to the public today, Juneteenth 2026.
The choice was deliberate. Juneteenth — the newest federal holiday, officially added to the calendar in 2021 — encompasses our nation’s history and future.
July 4, 1776, was the beginning of America, but it was only the start of the fight for freedom for all. During the subsequent almost 250 years, the battles to ensure every U.S. citizen enjoys the same rights and freedoms has continued, in fits and starts and sometimes hitting walls.
As Sanders Townsend noted, it is a process. And that process is embraced by President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle in South Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center.
The United States is a work in progress: It’s literally spelled out in a quote, carved in five-foot-tall concrete letters into the south and west sides of the 225-foot granite-clad museum tower, that reads —
“You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We The People.’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ‘Yes We Can.’ That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.”
In a larger context, our 44th president reminds us that the United States belongs to us all. And it is the responsibility of us all, working together, to continually improve our nation and not only our lives, but also (to borrow an earlier president’s words) the lives our fellow Americans.
Or, as President Obama said during yesterday’s dedication —
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The exhibits in the center are not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy bygone era, some unattainable past that we can dream about and say, ‘Oh, we miss you, Barack.’
They’re meant to remind us of who we can be, to remind us of what’s possible so we can forge ahead clear-eyed and confident, and do the work that still needs to be done.
We can learn from the past, but America’s story isn’t frozen in the past. It has chapters yet to be written, not by one person or a few people. Not by Barack and Michelle or anybody with a fancy title or a high office, but by all of us.
There is a new generation out there ready to write the next chapter of our story. We intend to help them do it. And we ask that you join us.
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Tax work to do, too: This Juneteenth 2026, as visitors stroll the 19.3 acre campus in Chicago’s Jackson Park and visit the exhibits inside the Obama Presidential Center, as a tax blogger I’m compelled to note that some of the work that’s ahead is tax related.
On another federal holiday back in January 2024, I wrote about how the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s fights against injustice included a state tax battle.
On MLK Day the year before, I examined racial bias in the U.S. tax code. Six months later, my post on Juneteenth 2023 focused on the Goal for next Juneteenth: ending racial bias in tax system.
And before that, on Juneteenth 2022, I noted here on the ol’ tax blog that Juneteenth is a time to celebrate and move forward, including within the tax code.
We also know there is disparity in Internal Revenue Service audits.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, noted seven years ago that “there are two tax codes in America, and there are also two enforcement regimes” which appear to favor the wealthy. And yes, there definitely is a racial component to this fiscal disparity.
Juneteenth tax thoughts: Tax code discrimination fights on all these fronts are ongoing.
“The rules that govern who pays, who benefits and how governments raise revenue are deeply intertwined with the nation’s history of racial exclusion. And today, those rules continue to disadvantage Black households in ways that echo past injustices,” writes Brakeyshia Samms in a Juneteenth column for The Progressive and reprinted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) where Samms is a senior analyst.
“Juneteenth invites us to ask what freedom truly looks like in 2026. It is not just the absence of legal bondage. It is the presence of economic security – the ability to afford housing, access health care, build wealth and pass opportunity on to the next generation. By that measure, the promise of freedom remains unfulfilled for too many Black Americans,” Samms writes.
But, she adds, public policy that helped get us to where we are today, also can be part of the solution.
And that dovetails into the combined celebration and continued struggle recognized each Juneteenth National Independence Day, and Obama’s urging of us all to keep fighting all the good fights. Tax ones included.
Closing with joy: Finally, since this is a holiday, let’s finish on a high note with a rousing and fun musical snippet from the Obama Presidential Center’s dedication ceremony.
As Ebony (aka starr__1204) points out in her Threads post, we all are Michelle Obama when we hear a favorite song, like Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered, I’m Yours.”
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View on Threads
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