On June 19, 2025, the School District of Lancaster stood alongside the NAACP Lancaster Branch, city leaders, and community members to raise the Juneteenth flag in the heart of downtown. This moment was a call to action, a reflection on history, and a celebration of our collective responsibility to truth and justice.
Juneteenth marks the day when, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, freedom finally reached Galveston, Texas. It is a reminder that freedom delayed is freedom denied, and that justice is not a guarantee, it must be pursued. This truth echoes not only through our national history, but also through our local stories and the lives of those who came before us.
Superintendent Dr. Keith Miles Jr., who delivered remarks at the flag raising, spoke from a place both personal and powerful. As a Black leader, he stood in the legacy of Lancaster changemakers like Hazel I. Jackson, Rita Smith-Wade-El, and Leon “Buddy” Glover, trailblazers who helped open doors for future generations. He reminded us that freedom is not complete for all, and that we must keep pushing toward a more just and equitable society.
In Lancaster, that pursuit is alive in our classrooms. Just last month, students at McCaskey High School partnered with the African American Historical Society of South-Central Pennsylvania and Historic Rock Ford through the Witness Stones Project. Their research uncovered the lives of four enslaved individuals, Robert, Susan, Bet, and Frank, whose names were long forgotten but are now permanently memorialized in Penn Square. These students pored over historical documents, including estate records and newspaper ads, to bring dignity and truth to people who were once treated as property. They turned silence into storytelling.
This is what education can do. It empowers students to become truth-tellers and history-makers. It equips them to ask hard questions, confront injustice, and contribute meaningfully to their communities. And it reminds us that our schools are not just places of learning they are spaces for healing, for reckoning, and for hope.
Raising the Juneteenth flag was not a one-day event. It was a recommitment. To teach the whole story. To honor the voices long silenced. And to raise a generation of young people who understand that justice is something we must work for every day, in every space we occupy.
To our students, staff, and families: thank you for continuing to build a district that not only acknowledges history but actively reshapes it.
Happy Juneteenth, Lancaster!
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