Today is Juneteenth, a day when we celebrate the end of slavery in the United States. Until recently, many Americans had never heard of Juneteenth and hadn’t recognized it as a holiday.

I was proud to vote in the House this week to officially make Juneteenth a national holiday. But while that designation is important and meaningful, there is so much more work to do to reckon with our history and commemorate not just our country’s victories, but our failures.

Understanding and examining our full history is important to avoid making the same mistakes as our ancestors, but it’s also key in drawing a line to the problems of today. People of color — particularly Black people — in this country are still not treated equally to their white counterparts.

They face stunted economic opportunity, greater health risks, and a discriminatory criminal justice system. Those disparities aren’t coincidences, they are a direct result of a continuous history of injustice, from kidnapping and transporting their ancestors to this country as slaves, to brutal Jim Crow laws that existed for decades, to modern-day voting laws that intentionally exclude them from exercising their right to vote.

As I commemorate this day by taking time to think about this country’s history, I’m more committed than ever to fighting so that every person in America is treated equally. Breaking down the racism that is entrenched in our nation’s institutions won’t be easy, but it’s our duty to tirelessly fight for those that society has tipped the scales against.

I won’t stop this work, and I hope you are behind me.

David