What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?: An Independence Day Teach-In
Join us online to think about the meaning of the 4th of July for racial justice.
Conducting teach-ins on various topics related to race and history is one of my favorite ways to share information, and I hope it’s helpful to you. But takes a ton of prep, and I can only keeping doing it with your support. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today!
Fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence—41 of them were enslavers.
The Fourth of July holiday commemorates the bold action of colonists in North America who insisted on their independence from Britain. They issued their call with the historic words…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Yet as even the most casual observer of history knows, only landowning white men were entitled to full rights and the freedom to pursue the lives they wanted.
Women, Native Americans, and especially Black people were not included in the freedom dreams so eloquently expressed in the nation’s founding documents. It took Civil Wars, suffrage movements, and civil rights movements that continue to this day to gain and hold the basic rights everyone in the United States should have had from the start.
Frederick Douglass, a formerly enslaved man and renowned abolitionist, knew better than most the hypocrisy of a land that prided itself on democracy and freedom while enslaving millions.
In a speech given on July 5, 1852, Douglass asked, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?”
This is the question we will take up on Thursday, June 30 at 7 pm CT during my latest teach-in.
Join us on Facebook Live or YouTube Live as we examine Frederick Douglass famous speech and analyze how he thought about freedom, unfreedom, and how those whose independence was restrained should view Independence Day.
This event is free, and there will be a time of questions and response. Please share widely and let’s thoughtfully commemorate this Fourth of July holiday.
Here are some resources for preparation:
What questions do you have about the Fourth of July from a historical perspective? Leave a comment below!
Woohoo! So excited for this discussion! My question is: Who was Thomas Jefferson referring to when he stated “all men” being created equal in the Declaration Of Independence? It’s been debated that it wasn’t referring to all human beings and that the Continental Congress was perhaps excluding black people as well as women. It’s even argued that “they didn’t intend it to mean individual equality. Rather, what they declared was that American colonists, as a people, had the same rights to self-government as other nations.” (Source: Standford article) I’d love to hear your thoughts on that!
As a white man what can I say or not say to my African American friends on the Fourth?