Juneteenth marks the delayed—but legally recognized—liberation of enslaved Black Americans in 1865. It is a day that demands reverence, historical literacy, and systemic accountability.
What it does not require is corporate sponsorship.
Over the last several years, Juneteenth has been gradually absorbed into the same superficial marketing cycles that corporations use to neutralize every other moment of resistance. Logos are recolored. Press releases are reworded. Cookouts are funded. And yet, the material conditions in Black communities remain fundamentally unchanged. In some cases, they’re actively made worse—by the same corporations performing “solidarity.”
This is not solidarity.
This is greenwashing, and more precisely, racial optics management under the guise of liberation.
Performative Acknowledgment, Ongoing Harm
Many of the corporations now “celebrating” Juneteenth have long-standing environmental footprints in Black communities. And those impacts are not symbolic—they are measurable, preventable, and deadly.
Let’s examine Amazon.
In 2023, Amazon released a Juneteenth message to its employees affirming its “commitment to equity.” But inside its warehouses—particularly in Black-majority urban areas like Staten Island or Chicago’s South Side—workers reported unsafe temperatures, lack of proper ventilation, and strict quotas that discouraged breaks even in extreme heat1. These conditions are not simply inconvenient. They are a form of modern labor exploitation. To make the case for Amazon even worse, since the President signed an Executive Order removing radical and wasteful DEI programs, companies have scaled back from it. Did they have to? No! The signing of the EO was just a great reason for companies to do what they already wanted to do, not have DEI. Amazon is just one of many corporations to take a step back from DEI. This supports the idea that care for the black community is not a priority.
In California’s Inland Empire, home to a disproportionately Black and Latino population, Amazon’s vast logistics operations have led to measurable spikes in air pollution, truck traffic, and asthma-related hospital visits2. The company’s public support for racial justice ends the moment policy threatens its profit margins or operations.
Similarly, energy corporations frequently insert themselves into local Juneteenth events as sponsors or community “partners.” Entergy, a major utility provider in the South, celebrated Juneteenth on social media while simultaneously advancing construction of a gas-fired power plant in a historically Black neighborhood in New Orleans—despite widespread public opposition3.
These are not contradictions. They are calculated strategies.
Structural Pollution Disguised as Celebration
There is a pattern here. Companies that cause environmental harm in Black communities are also those most eager to align themselves with the cultural aesthetic of liberation. This is textbook greenwashing: using the language and imagery of progressivism to obscure the continuation of extractive and violent practices.
And the consequences are not abstract.
They are found in the drinking water of Jackson, Mississippi.
In the soil around petrochemical plants in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana.
In the lungs of children living near highways carved through Black neighborhoods in the 1960s and still polluting today.
Juneteenth is not merely about memory—it is about material redress.
And if a company’s Juneteenth campaign does not come with measurable investments in clean air, land restoration, and the dismantling of environmental racism, then it is not celebration.
It is obstruction.
What Corporate Solidarity Should Actually Look Like
If these companies were serious, they would:
- Conduct independent environmental audits of their facilities in Black communities
- Cease political lobbying against clean energy and environmental health bills
- Fund reparative environmental initiatives, led by Black scientists and organizers
- Commit to long-term public accountability and transparency
Solidarity is not seasonal.
And liberation is not symbolic.
Closing Reflections: Who Gets to Define Freedom?
It is worth asking: What does it mean to celebrate freedom while poisoning the land beneath people’s feet?
What does it mean to host a Juneteenth festival while resisting efforts to provide clean drinking water to the Black communities that built this country?
Juneteenth was never about optics. It was—and remains—a demand for truth, repair, and justice.
Anything less is performance.
So this year, don’t be distracted by corporate flags and free food. Ask harder questions.
Who is funding this?
What are they trying to erase?
And what would actual environmental justice look like—if Black freedom were taken seriously?
Additional Reads
More Companies Rolling Back On DEI
Continue the conversation:
💬Comment below or reach out to share how your city or workplace is engaging (or avoiding) the real work of Black environmental liberation.
#JuneteenthJustice #GreenwashingExposed #EnvironmentalRacism #TerraOnTheBench #Juneteenth @EPA #EPA #EnvironmentalJustice #BlackLivesMatter
