Every 4th of July in the shadows of patriotic celebration, national pride and solemn remeberance of this nation's triumphant march thru history, I take to time to sit in the quiet corners of our collective past.
In the quiet corners of histories uncollected noticed, ignored or forgotten, I listen to the voices of those who lives most clearly define what American freedom has meant and what it could mean . . . the enslaved Africans and their descendants. On a hot summer's day on July 4th, 1852, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and leading voice of abolition stood before a predominately white crowd in Rochester, NY and demanded that the citizens of the United States take full measure of the cracks in the walls of liberty. Speaking from the other side of the wall of legal status, social position and even ontological definition, Douglass roared like a lion the most damning critique of American hypocrisy ever to be recorded. Reminding the crowd of the glories of this nation and yet not letting them forget the presence of promises unfulfilled, Douglass invited all to participate in the realization of a new nation truly conceived in liberty.
"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."
Douglass' words continue to ring true today. Though slavery was abolished 130 years ago and a little over 40 years ago its bastard child Jim Crow segregation was legislated out of existence, whenever this nation finds itself at times of crisis where the rhetoric of freedom and the reality of fear intermingle, his reminder that we are not yet saved and are not manifesting the better angels of our natures, the depths of failings must be examined.
Right now as this is being read hundreds of captives in the "War on Terror" sit in cells uncharged. As we read this hundreds of those captives from the Caribbean to Europe to North Africa are being tortured. As we read this Iraqi civilians suffer, starve and die. As we read this the administration mounts a war against the very rights and liberties: freedom of speech, association, public trial and privacy, that set this nation apart even from its ancient democratic predecessors. To some degree we the people bear the responsibility of this. We as a whole did not craft the policy nor enforce the measures but we the people bear the responsibility because we are the nation and the nation is us. In light of Douglass' words we must once again remember what we can be. We must be reminded of the spirit from which the fundamental laws of the land were crafted and once again we must learn that liberty and freedom are realized not by lofty rhetoric but by the protection of the weak, the uncuffing of the shackled, mingling of justice with mercy, and the recognition of our common humanity. We must recognize that we are not yet saved but through these actions we can become who we think we are.
Quote source: link: http://www.freemaninstitute.com/...