Frederick Douglass on the 4th of July: “Your celebration is a sham”

Didn’t want to be a buzz kill. So I waited ’til the day after the big celebration to drop this one.

Frederick Douglass’ speech, delivered in 1852, was meant to wake a nation that had not yet abolished slavery. But when I read this passage over at Open Culture today, I couldn’t get over how eerily timely it seemed:

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a 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 denunciation 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 that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

If you’re scratching your head, wondering how this passage relates to modern-day America, let the recent dead speak through this article…and this.

We Black folks die disproportionately at the hands of the police. And of disease and “dis-ease” of myriad kinds and causes, nearly all to do with societal ills for which we have yet to find cures.

“There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour,” Douglass wrote.

I thought something similar, watching the “rockets’ red glare” last night from my back patio, as dozens of local venues tried to outdo each other’s fireworks displays. I thought about the high profile police shootings. The way we kill one another — yes, that, too, especially in my Sweet Home Chicago. And why.

And of Dylann Roof who killed all those church-going Black folks with no remorse at all. And Trump and the people in Congress helping him erase everything our first Black president ever did, even if it means hurting a whole lot of people of all colors really, really badly.

And I thought of all the Confederate flags I still see driving past me here in rural Tucson. The chill that goes up my spine when eyes of the driver meet mine. And how those eyes don’t soften in shame like they used to…

I love my country. Deeply and sincerely. I’ve been to other countries, and I know from those experiences that it is the only one where I could have led the very good life I’ve led.

But I feel less safe here right now than I have since my parents used to take me “Down South” to visit relatives back in the 50s and early 60s. And that’s something I never expected.

It’s been decades since I felt that nagging burn in my stomach that never goes away entirely. That feeling that I am not welcome in the land I love. That the land I love will never love me back.

So Douglass’ words ring true to me, all these many decades after my own ancestors were freed from slavery, as he so fervently hoped they would be.

We are still a “house divided,” Mr. Lincoln.

How long, oh Lord, how long?

Author’s note: Did you enjoy the read? Please click the 💚 below and thanks for your support