"The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro"

PBS Africans in America Web site ^ | 1852 | Frederick Douglass

[Calpernia]

Nor will it ever end. And I will fight, not sit back and watch others. Freedom is never FREE.

[William McKinley]

You've got that right.

Hey Arc, why did you think this great piece would offend anyone here?

[William McKinley]

which even today is a third-world cesspool for the most part

An abundance of dictators, tribal lords, and despots will do that to a region.

[Arkinsaw]

At the risk of offending some here,

People speaking about liberty should never be offensive to anyone who loves it.

[Maria S]

An excellent book that I would recommend to anyone who is not familiar with all of the myths surrounding slavery, and a review from http://www.thbookservice.com/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6186:

Myths of American Slavery by Kennedy, Walter D.

While modern Americans are unanimous in their condemnation of slavery as cruel, unjust, and contrary to our nation's basic creed of individual freedom, it must be acknowledged that, until about 150 years ago, upstanding citizens legally bought and sold other human beings in the United States. This appalling contradiction has inspired a host of incorrect and unjust myths about slavery that have, over time, been widely accepted as fact -- and which are exploited by liberals to advance their agenda. Armed with plentiful historical data, Walter D. Kennedy reveals the truth behind these myths, including:

MYTH: Slavery was an institution operated by white people for the oppression of black people
MYTH: Slavery was a system organized by Christians
MYTH: In America, slavery was uniquely Southern
MYTH: Slavery was a self-evident sin, and so recognized by the Christian Church
MYTH: Slavery was uncommon and very short-lived in the North, and had little economic impact there
MYTH: The North ended slavery because it was offensive to the moral character of Northerners
MYTH: The North offered the black man equality and brotherhood
MYTH: Black slaveholders only owned slaves who were related to them in order to free them from slavery to whites
MYTH: Secession was just a scheme by Southern slaveholders to protect their slave property
MYTH: Lincoln freed the slaves, and was an advocate of racial equality
MYTH: Racial discrimination and/or segregation is a legacy of Southern slavery
MYTH: The lives of modern African-Americans have been irreparably damaged by slavery, and therefore government-backed entitlements and reparations are owed to them

Make no mistake: Myths of American Slavery is not a defense of slavery, but instead a sincere attempt to defeat the spread of misrepresentations that continue to bedevil race relations and contaminate America's political landscape.

[cyborg]

Who cares about another book that makes excuses for the inexcusable? What's the point? Slavery is over. Anyone with an education knows what happen, what didn't happen, what's truth and fiction. America does not need another excuse monger with a book explaining away American slavery. People will believe whatever they want to believe.

If the North was so terrible just as the South then why on earth did the underground railroad run to the NORTH? Since the quotes emphasis the North so much, I take it this book is written by a Southerner with a chip on his/her shoulder about the North. I grew up in the North but I knew that people had slaves up North. But you can't compare North and South... Boy that's a 5000 post thread waiting to happen isn't it?

[William McKinley]

Slavery was a self-evident sin

Um, you may want to move the word MYTH on this line to after the word sin instead of before the word slavery.

It is pretty self-evident that it was a sin.

[FNU LNU]

...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?"

Quite a lot, actually. While today both Washington and Jefferson are roundly condemned for owning slaves, it is nevertheless true that they both laid the first seeds for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Their first obstacle was the laws of Virginia Colony which forbade the freeing of slaves. When Jefferson tried to change the laws of Virginia in 1769, he ran into an obstruction in Crown law, which gave the Crown the unilateral and unambiguous power to strike down any and all American laws on any subject whatsoever.

Indeed, one great reason the Revolution was fought was to give liberty to the colonies to free slaves, which many of them did. For example, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1780, Connecticut and Rhode Island did so in 1784, Vermont in 1786, New Hampshire in 1792, New York in 1799, New Jersey in 1804, etc.

Why are we now headed back to the tyranny of others trumping our sovereignty now? We read daily of

• the UN passsing laws forbidding the US to act in numerous matters
• the International Criminal Court passing judgments forbidding the US to act in certain realms, and raising the specter of US citizens being tried without benefit of the Bill of Rights
• the European Union forbidding US states from executing capital punishment
• we change our tax laws at the behest of EU and World Trade Organization

So tell me again, why did we declare our independence if we're just going give up our sovereignty? Why should we submit to a absurd gaggle of UN Security Council members like Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico, Pakistan, Spain, and Syria?

Perhaps we need to declare independence again and tar and feather those who would sacrifice our nation's independence. Or, if we value independence no more than this, let's at least cancel Independence Day! We can't purport to be independent if we allow unelected foreigners in global organizations to nullify our local, state, and national policy. How free Is a country whose social policy is made by striped-pantsers in foreign capitols?

 

[sarasmom]

It is not offensive, outdated, but not offensive.
I actively celebrate the 4th of July, as did my maternal grandmother.
I can not speak for my great grandmother, or her great grandmother, but I doubt they celebrated overmuch.
You see, they were the indigenous people that were conquered, murdered and displaced by the ancestors of those brave men who declared indepence from England.
I celebrate the 4th of July.
I like to think that somewhere, somehow,Frederick Douglas, Martin L. King, and my great, great, great, great grandmother now celebrate the 4th of July with George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Mark Twain and Albert Einstein.
God bless the USA!

[somemoreequalthanothers]

It was self evident, in the context of the 1850's??

[William McKinley]

Yes.

[GatekeeperBookman]

That Frederic Douglas fellow sounds dangerous-someone should watch him...

[Calpernia]

I agree with William. Care to offer more?

[somemoreequalthanothers]

Well, I don't claim to know the context of thought in the 1850's. How lucky for me I am surrounded with those who do.

[TJFLSTRAT]

Despite all the past strife, Black Americans should fall on their knees and thank God their anceastors came her in chains, for this is the land of milk and honey. May God Bless America.

[Calpernia]

You are right. This does have the makings of a 5000 post thread :)

I agree and disagree with you. Yes, slavery is still WAY too much out there for the unfortunate benefits of the racial flamers. This makes embracing history hard. Cause people have their hands out.

But, NEVER forget or dismiss the past. Embrace it, learn from it and excel.

I would NOT be who I am today if it weren't from my gramma's stories. Too many citizens in this countries have become complacent from not embracing the past. Too many fall victim to propaganda because of it.

And, btw, you mentioned underground railroads going to the North. I grew up by one of those tunnels. GREAT stories from exploring! But that too is another thread.

[barkeep]

Actually, unless your family sprang out of thin air a couple hundred years ago, if you will trace the geneology far enough back, their ancestors were almost certainly both slave and slaveholder. Which has nothing to do with this most eloquent of speeches. Slavery was the one fatal flaw the founders could not overcome in Philadelphia, and they had to let it pass or let the Union dissolve on the spot. The Civil War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history, started our journey back to justifying this nation as being worthy of that oversight. We just may make it yet. Thank you Arc, it has been thirty years since I read Doglass, and it is a timely piece for thoughtful consideration on Independence Day.

[Calpernia]

>>>>So tell me again, why did we declare our independence if we're just going give up our sovereignty? Why should we submit to a absurd gaggle of UN Security Council members like Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico, Pakistan, Spain, and Syria?

I kind of just answered that in my last post. It is NAIVETTE!

Too many citizens in the US don't know better. Their history is just that, history. Knew enough to pass a test, then gone, puff. Most are too far removed from their roots. They are conditioned. Get up, go to work, come home, repeat.

They grew up in decades of nothing happening and don't believe anything is happening. They don't study the news in the paper that doesn't have and immediate affect on their lives.

Not justifying, just explaining.

[cyborg]

Self evident to many anti-slavery white christians at the time who were sometimes thrown in jail for teaching slaves to read and write, not to mention build the underground railroad.

I know what you MAY be trying to say. That we ought not to look at the 1800s with a year 2000 mindset. Slavery was widely practiced, but that does not make it right. American slavery, especially as practiced in the South, had many features not found in slavery practiced elsewhere. Actually there is so much written from that time period, one can actually know the mindset... from Harriet Beecher Stowe to Tocqueville.

[somemoreequalthanothers]

But was it wrong to them? What are we practicing today that might be considered sin a century and a half in the future? Who among us has the answer?