On Saturday, I hosted a rally at El Dorado Park attended by an array of community members as diverse as Los Angeles County. As we wholeheartedly celebrate Juneteenth, we continue the hard work it takes to fulfill Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of true opportunity for black people, which has not yet manifested in many inner cities dealing with such day-to-day dangers as gang violence and property crime.

It was a positively beautiful day. But the day, I was distressed to find, was marred by partisan bickering elsewhere. So many of my contemporaries on the Right outright condemned our newest national holiday. “Juneteenth is soooo lame. Democrats really need to stop trying to repackage segregation. I’ll be celebrating July 4th and July 4th only. I’m American,” Candace Owens tweeted.