Porch Talk Grit 14: Holding the Line Between Two Flags
By Liberty Lane with Ezra Stone – June 19, 2025
It’s Juneteenth. The day we celebrate the long-delayed arrival of freedom for enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, in 1865—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. A day of joy, memory, resistance, and reflection. But this year, it doesn’t come alone.
Just five days ago, our streets were filled not with music and marches for justice, but with tanks, drones, and choreographed might. A parade through Washington that cost tens of millions and glorified one man. Not the Constitution. Not the people. One man.
So here we are, y’all. One week. Two flags.
One draped over a tank.
One waving over a crowd of folks singing about freedom that didn’t come easy.
And I brought Ezra Stone back to the porch with me to help make sense of it.
Juneteenth. Flag Day. Two Flags. Two Parades. One Country. No Kings.
Liberty: You ever think about how different those two celebrations feel, Ezra?
Ezra: Every time. One is power wielded. The other is freedom earned. I served 28 years in uniform. And I’ll tell you straight: the Army deserves celebration. But it deserves truth more. And truth is, we don’t parade soldiers for a man’s ego. We honor them by upholding their oath.
Liberty: And yet, that oath keeps gettin’ bent and twisted like it was written in wet spaghetti.
Ezra: The oath is to the Constitution. Not the Commander. Not the crowd. The Constitution. But when folks start treating tanks like fireworks and parades like coronations, we’ve lost the plot.
Liberty: It hit me hard this year. How many kids saw that parade and thought that’s what patriotism looks like—loud, forceful, expensive.
Ezra: But the real work of freedom? That’s quiet. Hard. Unfinished. And Juneteenth reminds us: freedom delayed is freedom denied—but not forgotten.
Liberty: You think we forget too quick?
Ezra: Not forget. We sanitize. We sand down the rough parts. Make slavery a footnote. Make resistance look impolite. Make Juneteenth a day off without teaching why it exists.
Liberty: Lord, say that again.
Liberty: My grandmother used to say, “You don’t celebrate a harvest you didn’t plant.” Juneteenth was planted in pain. In patience. In perseverance. That celebration came late because freedom came late. And in a lotta places, it still ain’t on time.
Ezra: Amen. And now, we got governors refusing to fund it, schools refusing to teach it, candidates pretending it divides us.
Liberty: It doesn’t divide us. It defines us. Because the measure of a country ain’t in its flags or fireworks. It’s in whether it delivers on the promises it makes.
Ezra: And if it doesn’t?
Liberty: Then it’s our duty—yours, mine, all of us on this porch—to keep calling it in. Keep speaking it out. Keep making it better.
Ezra: That’s the oath I took. And I didn’t lay it down when I hung up the uniform.
Liberty: So what do we tell folks this week? With one hand still stinging from the noise of that parade, and the other trying to light a Juneteenth candle without the wind blowin’ it out?
Ezra: We tell ’em this: don’t confuse volume with vision. Don’t mistake force for freedom. If you’re proud to be an American, prove it by fighting for all Americans.
Liberty: And if your flag waves stronger on June 14 than it does on June 19, maybe check what you think it stands for.
Ezra: Because liberty—real liberty—doesn’t march for one man. It walks beside every man. And woman. And child. And it never forgets those who had to wait too long to join the walk.
Liberty: We love this country. That’s why we hold it accountable.
Ezra: We remember its pain. That’s how we measure its progress.
Liberty: And we stand on this porch, rain or shine, with coffee in one hand and conviction in the other, sayin:
Both: Freedom ain’t finished.
Resources:
Check out Walden’s full reflection: No Kings in America, Parade, and Juneteenth Reflections