Posted on 07/03/2014 7:22:45 PM PDT by Drango
Celebrating Independence Day on July Fourth is as American as burgers and dogs on the grill, lemonade in plastic cups, apple pie on paper plates, baseball, fireworks and Sousa marches.
Except for those Americans who don't celebrate it at all.
Like William H. Lamar IV. Last year the African-American preacher from Hyattsville, Md., wrote an essay that was carried by In it he asked: "How can I celebrate liberty with bondage — economic bondage, educational bondage, political bondage, health care bondage, and religious bondage — all around me?"
On the Fourth of July, he continued, "I will reflect on America as it was and as it is. And I will affirm my allegiance to my ancestors whose fight lives on in me."
The pastor is one of a strain of Americans who, throughout the country's history, have chosen to express their independence on Independence Day by not celebrating Independence. Forgoing the Fourth. Here is a trio of other examples:
1) Witnesses To History. More than 11,000 Jehovah's Witnesses convened in Tacoma, Wash., on July 4 weekend 2009, according to the Tribune Business News. "The convention continues today on Independence Day," the reporter wrote, "with another full schedule of speakers and singing. But don't expect any fireworks or flag waving. Witnesses don't celebrate the Fourth of July. They consider flags objects of worship."
2) Gourd Clan Ceremonies. Beginning in the late 19th century, Dennis Zotigh of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington , the U.S. government outlawed tribal dances, feasts and other American Indian ceremonial expressions. Native Americans were encouraged to celebrate American holidays instead. In the 20th century, those indigenous festivities slowly returned. Today "the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma holds Gourd Clan ceremonies on the Fourth of July," he writes, "because the holiday coincides with their Sun Dance, which once took place during the hottest part of the year. The Lakota of South Dakota and Cheyenne of Oklahoma continue to have some of their annual Sun Dances on the weekends closest to the Fourth of July to coincide with the celebration of their New Year. Some American Indians do not celebrate the Fourth of July because of the negative consequences to Indian people throughout history, while others simply get together with family and have cookouts, like many non-Native American citizens."
3) Days Of Slavery. Born a slave, social reformer Frederick Douglass was asked to deliver an oration — — at an Independence Day gathering at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, N.Y., in 1852. "What, to the American slave," he asked the crowd, "is your Fourth 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 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 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 the United States, at this very hour." Douglass' speech informed and influenced future Americans — including William H. Lamar IV.
It takes a lot of energy to break through a popular delusion.
Celebrating OUR Independence day with a die-hard lefty from England was a true pleasure for me.
Great friend and always fun to be around, seeming intelligent but superficially liberal and anti-American.
During his trip to the US, he drove up and down the east coast from Virginia to Massachusetts. As we headed down to the Mall in DC for the “4th of July”, I asked him about is road trip, he said “You Americans have no creativity”, “Most of the towns and cities I drove through are named after places in England”. I shot back in an instant “We weren’t Americans then”.
As Cassius Clay once famously said, sort of...
Our grandfathers may have come over in different boats, but we are all in the same boat now.
Interesting information.
LOL, good one!
Indeed.
When the Potato Famine hit Ireland, the Irish left.
When Hitler came to power in Germany, the Jews left.
When hard economic times hit Italy and Poland, the Italians and the Poles left.
When religious freedom was denied in Britain, the British left.
If the country you live in is the worst place on earth, it wouldn’t be too difficult to find a better place to live.
I recently expressed my suspicion the Left is attacking the 4th of July.
Yes, he was.
Go live in Somalia, see if you like that better.
Indeed.
So what is this drama queen gonna do instead?
Cal a press conference?
Commit suicide?
Just bitch?
What?
On the dime of taxpayers
I am observing We Sold Ourselves for Benefits day.
And try carrying a flintlock on Lexington Green and see how long it is before you are arrested (or shot).
The totalitarians among us don't wish to be free, but to be free FROM freedom. Yes they do. I know it is illogical, but it is true. It's a frightening world to them. In their myopic treatment of freedom they will usher (have undered) in a tyrannical and deadly state. Look at every disarmed hell whole the left has destroey since the start of Johnson's Great Society.
Of course, in this day, there’s really nowhere else left to go.
So, we’ll just have to stand and fight.
This gentleman was refusing to celebrate the 4th of July because of the (then) current “situation” in America as he perceived it.
The 4th of July is Independence Day. It is a celebration of our Declaration of Independence and the principles on which our great country was founded.
So many people confuse the government with our nation itself. Our government has failed on many counts, mostly due to the lack of understanding or the intentional undermining of the basic principles of our Constitution.
Those principles are about personal freedom and the elevation of the citizen above the government. The fact that a majority of our citizens do not understand or appreciate those principles does not, in any way, negate their fundamental truth.
We must protect and live up to those beautiful principles. If we do, we will continue to be the great nation envisioned by our brave and insightful founding fathers.
I will proudly celebrate the 4th in the spirit of the foundation of our nation.
Perfect description of life under the thumb of Obama.
“How can I celebrate liberty with bondage — economic bondage, educational bondage, political bondage, health care bondage, and religious bondage — all around me?””
Maybe he should spend the weekend contemplating the source of those miseries and why they still persist in 2014?
I’ll give the reverend a hint to get him started: it’s not the Tea Party.
Hey Linton Weeks, I hear there’s a new caliphate forming up, perhaps you should move there. And don’t let the door hit you in your sorry ass on the way out.
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