Frederick Douglass's Independence Day Speech Analysis
july 5, 2009
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 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 …show more content…
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 …show more content…
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
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 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 …show more content…
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 …show more content…
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