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What to the slave is the 4th of July? Revisiting Frederick Douglass
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As many of us get set to barbecue and light fireworks, whether in conscious celebration of the Fourth or simply to enjoy an extended weekend, I think it's worth considering the question posed by Frederick .jpg)
Douglass. The following are excerpts from a speech he gave in 1852 at an Independence Day commemoration sponsored by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, NY. A longer excerpt and a link to the full text of the speech can be found at my blog.
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?
…I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine.
…What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour...
Now, those of you who have read this far down without simply cussing me for being a party pooper (or worse) may be asking yourselves why I think this speech is relevant today. After all, we’ve come a long way since the speech was delivered in 1852, right? We even have a Black President!
Unfortunately, the freedom of a nation has never been determined by the status of one man. If this were the case, then there would have been no reason for Douglass to even make the speech. After all, by 1852, he had not only managed to purchase his freedom, but had started publishing his famous North Star newspaper. He was known and respected not only in the United States but in Europe as well. And more than 150 years before Barack Obama would become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, Douglass received the Liberal Party’s vice-presidential nomination!
And yet, Douglass was clear that his struggle was not about his status, but about the status of his “brethren”. For this reason, he would state that, “To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.”
Nevertheless, one may still argue that even beyond the success of a Barack Obama, or an Oprah Winfrey, or a Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace), that if you look at African-Americans as a whole it is still clear that we have overcome. Slavery was abolished, we have the vote, and our quality of life is equal to White America’s. So what’s the problem?
Well first of all, regardless of what you may have learned in elementary school, slavery was never actually abolished. In case you’ve never actually read the 13th Amendment, it actually allows slavery and involuntary servitude to continue “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”. So as you look at the more than 2.3 million people in prison (more than any other country, including China) and the disproportionate number of Blacks in prison, prior to believing the myth that Blacks just commit more crimes, please remember this basic fact—there has always, always, been a connection between the prison system and slavery.
As for the vote, that important right was almost useless following the fall of Reconstruction until the late 1960s. The only thing that empowers the 14th Amendment is the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which is increasingly under attack. Right here in Georgia, it was only the VRA which kept Georgia from continuing a citizenship check system that would have disenfranchised thousands of legal voters, primarily Black and Latino voters. More importantly, many more thousands have already been denied the vote by states avoiding the VRA. To these individuals, what is the Fourth of July?
And as for quality of life, there’s a lot of national info I can provide. But for a moment, let’s just look at my home town of Atlanta. To the thousands of public housing residents who are being evicted from Atlanta public housing, what is the Fourth of July? Believe me, I’m no fan of what public housing has become, but as the city, the housing authority and its supporters in the real estate development community celebrate the tearing down of homes, why are they refusing to provide tracking information on the thousands of residents who have NOT returned to the redeveloped properties and who have simply been transferred from one “pocket of poverty” to another? Again, to these individuals, what is the Fourth of July?
So while today’s inequality may not be exactly the same as yesterday’s slavery, I still believe that Douglass’ speech raises some interesting questions for us to ponder.
Nevertheless, with all of this said, I would like to end this commentary the same way that Frederick Douglass ended his speech.
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope.
And when you begin with hope, who knows where you'll end up.
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