“We can’t let Martin Luther King Jr’s dream become a nightmare because of the current administration,” André De Shields said in a speech accepting the 2025 Legacy Award at the Broadway Celebrates Juneteenth concert at Father Duffy Square.

In the speech and in an earlier interview (see video and an excerpt below), De Shields delivered a different way to look at Juneteenth, the federal holiday that commemorates June 19, 1865, the date when enslaved people in Texas learned of the Emancipation Proclamation.

“Even when we were kidnapped and bound and put at the bottom of the slave ships and brought to the new world, we knew we were free. It was just a matter of time, and everybody else would know the same thing. So I’m happy to be here to celebrate Juneteenth,but don’t get it twisted.

“We celebrate Juneteenth, just as we celebrate Black History Month and we keep reminding the United States of America that every month is Black History, because American history is Black history.

“Did you know that you can be shackled, you can be enslaved, but still be free? It’s what you believe. It’s what you practice. As a matter of fact, today, there are some of us who are what not free because they have not let the chains go off their minds.”