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 fa thers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth 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? - Frederick Douglass, The Meaning of July Fourth to the Negro (on our countrys 76th birthday in Rochester, NY) ... and my response last year (on our countrys 238th birthday in Albuquerque, NM) bit.ly/1jRIaaj
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 00:06:40 +0000
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