History
and why history has to be
understood in its context not
cherrypicked not ignored or denied
because it was ugly because it remains
ugly
History Truth
& Fact
necessary to punch a hole in and deflate a
Macys helium balloon dedicated to American mythos
Americans are not who they
believe they are but rather who they
should be known to be in toto
Frederick Douglass
“Fellow-citizens, pardon me,
allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or
those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great
principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration
of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our
humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express
devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to 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 today?
“What, to
the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to
him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to
which he is a 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 denunciation 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 that would disgrace a nation of
savages. There is not a nation of the
earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these
United States at this very hour.
“At a time
like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the
ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour forth a
stream, a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering
sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is
not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the
earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the
nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the
hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and the crimes against God and man
must be proclaimed and denounced.”
1024, Monday,
5 7. 21
