4th of july facts and history slavery

To some, myself included, celebrations of American independence on July 4 are a reminder of the country’s hypocrisy on the matter of freedom, as slavery played a key role in the nation’s history; even today, America’s history of racism is still being written, while other forms of modern-day slavery persist in the U.S. and around the world.

Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?
History A July 4th Tradition: The Declaration Of Independence, Read Aloud Independence Day (colloquially the Fourth of July or July 4) is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the Declaration of Independence of the United States, on July 4, 1776.
The Fourth of July from the get-go has been a rowdy holiday with ringing bells, gunfire, cannonfire, fireworks, feasting, speeches and toasts. As Douglass left the podium to take his seat the audience rose to thunderous applause.Facing a packed crowd of 600 people, Douglass delivered a speech that Yale University historian David W. Blight has described in his book “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” as a “rhetorical masterpiece of American abolitionism,” an “oratorical symphony” and one of the “most important speeches in American history.”©2005 - 2020 Swift Communications, Inc. But he would also witness the horrors of the Jim Crow era (1877-mid-1960s) in which the states and courts stripped away the gains of Reconstruction, and brought a reign of terror and violence against black people throughout the country.On this Independence Day might we take a moment to remember Frederick Douglass as we think about how to reconcile our 21st century American society to the promise of the Declaration of Independence that he so revered?As Douglass wrote in January 1893, it is “Not a Negro Problem, not a race problem, but a national problem; whether the American people will ultimately administer equal justice to all the varieties of the human race in this Republic.”Linda K. Jack, who lives in Grass Valley, is a member of the Grass Valley Historical Commission. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. Projecting his baritone voice to the far reaches of the vast hall he challenged the audience: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” Invoking the cadence and language of the Old Testament, a rhetorical style familiar to his largely white listeners, Douglass delivered an impassioned answer to the question, a portion of which is quoted here:But Douglass never gave up on his belief that America would live up to its founding values. In early summer 1852 Frederick Douglass, one of America’s greatest orators, was invited to deliver a Fourth of July address to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society at the newly constructed Corinthian Hall, the most prestigious venue in Rochester, New York. New York once had the second largest slave population in the United States: By 1730, 42 percent of the population owned slaves, according to the New York Public Library.While the state had passed a law shortly following the Revolutionary War ordering the gradual abolition of slavery, the slaves were not freed until July 4, 1827. The Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! 4. The ladies of the Society agreed that Douglass would speak on the 5th instead.Douglass initially put his audience at ease by recognizing the genius of the Founding Fathers, describing the Declaration of Independence as the “RINGBOLT to the chain of your nation’s destiny,” and the preamble the nation’s “saving principles.” Douglass’s use of the possessive pronoun “your” was deliberate for he would soon turn to the glaring hypocrisy of a nation that celebrated the lofty goals of its founding while it simultaneously treated as chattel over 3 million enslaved people.He proposed that America still had the time and tools to regenerate itself and live up to its promise.In early summer 1852 Frederick Douglass, one of America’s greatest orators, was invited to deliver a Fourth of July address to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society at the newly constructed Corinthian Hall, the most prestigious venue in Rochester, New York.Douglass seized the moment. ABOVE VIDEO: The 4th of July is a holiday to celebrate the Declaration of Independence, but certain people are condemning its primary author, Thomas Jefferson, for racism. Shutterstock.

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