As efforts to reshape how America teaches and remembers its racial history continue across the country, U.S. Rep. Al Green is pushing to ensure that the nation’s history of slavery is never forgotten and that its legacy remains part of the country’s public conscience.
Green’s fifth annual Slavery Remembrance Legislative Update, where hundreds gathered in Houston under the theme, “Harder Yet May Be the Fight,” commemorated the millions who endured American slavery. He also called to carry their history into the battles still being fought over equality and justice.
While Juneteenth celebrates emancipation, Green has argued that the nation also needs a day to commemorate those who lived and died enslaved and never experienced freedom.
At the Houston gathering, Green asked the audience to respond “always remember” whenever he said the words “we must.” He then moved through a litany of suffering and resistance, of Africans kidnapped and forced into slavery, those who died during the Middle Passage, men, women, and children confined aboard slave ships, parents separated from their children at auction blocks, and enslaved people who risked their lives seeking freedom.
The words came back from the crowd again and again, “Always remember.”
Throughout the program, speakers moved between the history of enslavement and contemporary fights over voting rights, education, economic opportunity, and racial equality.
Green’s premise for the observance was to describe slavery without euphemisms.
“It’s not enough to say ‘we remember’ casually. We ought to commemorate. The commemoration is in engaging with each other.”
Al Green, Congressman
“Sometimes in polite society, we lose the meaning and definition of what slavery really was,” Green said. “It was more than being shackled. It was about kidnapping, rape, murder, forcing people to work hard each and every day without pay. Slavery is something that we have to tell the truth about…people who worked and had a hand in building the White House, building the capital, feeding the country, built the roads and the bridges. It’s about honoring 240 years of sacrifice. The United States of America built its economic foundation on their backs.”
Congressman Al Green Commemorates Slavery Remembrance Day at The Community of Faith Church.
— U.S. Representative Al Green (@RepAlGreen) August 23, 2026
You can watch live now on Rep. Al Green’s official YouTube channel or by clicking here: https://t.co/zy7phcSJ3q
Green has sought to institutionalize that remembrance through his congressional “Conscience Agenda,” which includes proposals recognizing August as Slavery Remembrance Month and Aug. 20 as Slavery Remembrance Day. Materials also highlighted measures honoring Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner, as well as legislation seeking a Congressional Gold Medal for enslaved Africans.
The event also honored former Congressman Craig Washington, whose career included service in the Texas Legislature and Congress, as well as decades as an attorney.
State Rep. Jolanda Jones praised Washington’s “advocacy, leadership, mentorship, and service to justice,” while Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis presented him with a challenge coin featuring a Black Lady Justice.
Not just history
Rev. James Dixon, pastor of the Community of Faith Church and President of the NAACP Houston Chapter, framed remembrance as a responsibility to protect freedoms in the present.
“The misnomer for us is that we think that there would finally be a day when we don’t have to fight again,” he said. “Tell your neighbor that day ain’t coming. James Baldwin was right when he said that to be Black, to be a minority in America, means to always be in a fight.”
Dixon added that the issues people joined the March on Washington for in 1963 still prevail today, including voting rights, fair housing, health care, public education, DEI initiatives, and access to economic opportunity.
“That list is still longer,” Dixon added. “So the question is not why should we be marching in 2026. The question is, why are we not all marching in 2026?”
A wave across generations
The connection between memory and present-day responsibility also resonated with attendees.
For Chase Broxton, who brought her teenage daughter, the gathering was about ensuring that historical memory survives beyond the generation that currently carries it.
“When it comes to keeping these dates of remembrance, we’re passing the torch to our children,” Broxton said. “Bringing my daughter as a teenager here is going to afford her the opportunity to get so much information about our past, and that she’s going to be able to pass that torch to people younger than her.”
Broxton’s daughter, Seven, agreed with her mother.
“What today means and remembering what happened today, I believe it means honoring those who have come before us and recognizing those who have put in so much fight for us in our movement,” she said.
Houston public school educator, Ashley Hoskins, said remembering slavery should not mean remaining psychologically fixed in its trauma.
“This day is a day to honor a history that shall not be forgotten,” Hoskins said. “It’s not to live in trauma, but to acknowledge the enslaved’s contributions to America, its economy, its society, and also Western civilization. America would not be America today if it was not for the enslaved.”
Other attendees expressed a similar sense that remembrance carries obligations.
Helen Muhammad described the observance as “a day of being mindful of what we need to do as a community for those who have forged the way for us.”
“We’re not complete,” the attendee said. “This is not a perfect status or stage in our life, but it is a strong beginning.”
