Before we get started a big warm welcome to any new listeners. We've been making this

show for four years ever since the 2016 presidential campaign and so there are a lot of

great past episodes for you to dig into.

But let me particularly urge you to go back to the start of this season.

That's when we first started looking at the years immediately following the Civil War,

that period when this country first set out to truly become a multiracial democracy

and has not yet figured it out.

Those episodes and that history feels super relevant right now.

And we'll return to that period in this episode as well.

It's kind of a holiday special for us.

We just celebrated Juneteenth.

And so in this episode, we have two conversations

about Black Liberation.

And also, we want to look ahead to the 4th of July and think about what it does and does not mean for freedom.

I'm Kywright and this is the United States of Anxiety, a show about the unfinished business

of our history and its grip on our future. U.S. Oh, oh, oh, oh,

Oh, oh, oh,

and oh, N.

Yeah. Yeah we yeah.

And we yeah. I suspect millions and millions of Americans learned about Juneteenth for the first time this year.

There are new state holidays, maybe a federal one coming.

Several corporations are now giving workers paid leave to mark the day.

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