June 19, 2026 - Opinion: The Boulder on Bilal’s Chest: Islam and the Abolition of Slavery

By Asad Pervez, Center for Peace & Spirituality USA

BOSTON- Juneteenth — June 19th — marks the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform the last enslaved people in the nation that they were free, more than two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. As we celebrate this milestone in American history, we should also sit with some deeper questions: Who were the first people to be enslaved? How far back does this darkness go? And how did God guide humanity out of it?

The short answer is that slavery predates all human records. It is woven into the earliest fabric of civilization. Wars were among its primary engines — the victor would claim soldiers, servants, and resources as spoils. All ties to home and family would be severed. By today’s standards these realities are unthinkable. But for most of human history, this was simply understood as the way things were.

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