Honoring Juneteenth and Strengthening our Reconciliation Efforts

June 18, 2026

Dear members of the SLU community,

The University will close on June 19 in observance of Juneteenth, which marks the day Union troops arrived in Texas and announced to enslaved African Americans that they were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. This day offers a moment to reflect on our history and to attend community celebrations of freedom, resilience, and hope.

Juneteenth is also an opportunity to affirm SLU’s sustained commitment to fostering truth, healing, and reconciliation. In my inaugural remarks last November, I acknowledged SLU’s involvement in the grave sin of slavery and our responsibility to help repair the harm it caused.

In January, I made the University’s Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation (THR) efforts a formal initiative of the President’s Office, facilitated by Assistant to the President Nicci Roach and supported by many others. Learning from past setbacks and conversations with campus and community stakeholders, we are strengthening the foundation for this work in two primary ways.

First, we are working deliberately to broaden and deepen our relationships with descendants, colleagues, students, and partners – on campus, regionally, and nationally – whose lives and commitments connect to this history.

Second, we are expanding access to our history and deepening education about it. In May, in partnership with core curriculum leadership, we convened workshops for Cura Personalis 1 instructors on introducing SLU’s history of enslavement to all undergraduate students. With SLU Libraries, we are laying the groundwork for a public digital archive. We are also building collaborations with peer institutions and planning additional educational programming with local and national partners in the year ahead.

This work is foundational and humbling, and its progress is not always visible. We remain committed to building a more informed, connected, and just community, and we will move forward deliberately and in partnership with others so that our efforts endure.

I look forward to sharing further updates in the months ahead.

Sincerely,

Edward Feser, Ph.D.
President