America, America.....
So, I’ve been in a few discussions recently about American Holidays and Black folk. Black folk have been re-awakened to the details of Juneteenth and it’s meaning to us compared to the upcoming 4th of July Celebrations this weekend. The more I listen, the more I’m convinced that the July 4th Holiday is primarily a chance to get together with your loved ones at the cookout for my people.
I can remember the country’s Bicentennial Celebration in 1976. All of the build-up and the parades and the speeches and the rides on the river and the fireworks and the special graduation ceremonies with medallions and the such. And, even as a 17 year old, there was a hollowness in my heart that I could not explain.
Today, though, I get it.
In 1776, my people were slaves in the South. My momma’s people were in Virginia. My daddy’s folk in Georgia and Maryland. And, we’ve found out that my husbands paternal line was almost certainly connected to the boats that arrived in Charleston, SC. There was nothing about Europeans celebrating their freedom from England that had anything at all to do with my people.
As I have recently sat with that, it also explained why when our family gathered, it was less about “Independence” and more about “fellowship at the cookout”!! I’ve yet to recall, except for the bicentennial year, when my people were celebrating Independence. I have recalled the speech by former slave Frederick Douglass however, who was asked to speak at the 76th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And, he really sums up how a lot of us feel.
“I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!”
“What, to the American slave, 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 cruelly 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 hour.” Frederick Douglass
I’m certainly grateful that the democracy called America is where I live - yet, If I’m honest, I struggle with the inequity that my people still experience today. And those two things can be true at the same time. It’s like we are in an abusive relationship. We love this country…..but we hate the abuse levied upon us…….it never stops…….and the hope of what we really deserve, as citizens, and thought we had through the enactment of laws……..is slowly but surely being eroded away.
So, I already celebrated my Independence Day on Juneteenth. But, I am sure gonna be grilling me some veggie burgers and corn this weekend. Prolly make another peach cobbler if hubby wants it. And, of course, we’ll have some watermelon too!! Gonna watch the fireworks!! We live in the country and the neighbors are always lighting up the skies!!!
Then, I’ll probably listen to James Earl Jones recite Frederick Douglass’s speech and recommit myself to doing my part in making my country a better place for people like me.
America, America…..
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Happy Fourth!! Enjoy Your People!! It’s Wellness Wednesday!!
I’m Still Shoutin’ Ova Here!!
Donna
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