This coming Saturday is the 4th of July, the celebration of our nation’s independence. This year it will have a different feel coming amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing protests for racial justice. Although we may not experience the usual fire works displays, parades, cookouts, and other holiday traditions, this is an opportune time to reflect on the most famous words from The Declaration of Independence, “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.”
These inspiring words articulate a core principle of our nation. Yet the many levels of inequality revealed by the pandemic and the numerous killings of unarmed black people by police culminating in the video of George Floyd’s murder remind us that we have not yet lived into the reality of that core principle. It is not unpatriotic to point out the discrepancy between our principles and our actions. Rather it is the only way to take steps toward living more deeply into those principles. Frederick Douglass set a powerful example of this in his 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” He delivered the speech while still enslaved calling the nation and the church to recognize and repent of the inconsistency between our principles and practices. Here is just one example from this amazing speech:
Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth.
If we substitute the phrase “systemic racism” for the word “slavery,” this harsh yet honest quote speaks to us in 2020. Confessing the depth of this reality is the necessary step to the systemic change necessary to live into the truth expressed in July of 1776. The system of slavery that once seemed so essential to the nation was eventually abolished. Slavery’s legacy of systemic racism will only change when we commit to telling the truth of our current situation and committing ourselves to closing the gap between our principles and practices. Take a few minutes to watch the video below that features the great actor James Earl Jones reading excerpts from Frederick Douglass’ famous speech.