4th of July

So many people will be watching Fireworks and

having a grand ol day of 'glory', but before you

do, please think about what it means to

many millions of Americans. This quote may

be over a hundred years old, but as far as I

am concerned it is pretty relevant today, if

not more so!!

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WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?

_Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July 5,

1852_ by Frederick Douglass

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

cruelty 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.

Go where you may, search where you will,