This
July Fourth, for the 248th time, America
celebrates independence from British rule. But
after President Joe Biden signed into law
Juneteenth as a federal holiday, Americans are
also forced to take a closer look at what this
July Fourth represents.
More
than two years after the Emancipation
Proclamation, and two months after the end of
the Civil War, enslaved African Americans in
Texas found out they were free on June 19,
1865.
With
two wildly different - yet celebratory -
liberation narratives about independence,
Americans must reconcile her founding ideals
with their spotty lived reality.
Frederick
Douglass called America out on its hypocrisy
more than a century and a half ago, in his
1852 speech, “What, to the slave, is the
Fourth of July?” In it, Douglass stated that a
country in the throes of slavery must close
its yawning gap between the principles of the
United States and the violence and trauma this
country inflicted on Black people. His words
still resonate today.
“What
have I, or those I represent, to do with your
national independence. ... I am not included
within the pale of this glorious anniversary!
Your high independence only reveals the
immeasurable distance between us,” wrote
Douglass. “This Fourth of July is yours, not
mine.”
Yet
despite the unequal treatment of African
Americans in the United States, Black
patriotism shines across the pages of U.S.
history. African Americans fought in a
segregated military in every war defending
this country until 1948. Crispus Attucks, a
brother of African and Native American
ancestry from Framingham, was the first martyr
for America’s independence in the American
Revolution. Prince Estabrook, an enslaved man
from Lexington and a Black Minuteman, was
wounded in the Revolution’s first battle.
Enslaved
Africans who fought for the British, called
Black Loyalists, were ensured their freedom
after the war. Enslaved Africans who fought
for the United States, sadly, were not.
Black
patriotism has been exhibited not just on the
battlefields of America’s wars but also in
demands for equality in her streets and
arenas. Let’s remember, San Francisco 49ers
quarterback Colin Kaepernick, for example, who
protested police brutality against Blacks by
taking a knee during the national anthem in
2016.
His
actions were condemned as polarizing,
un-American and unpatriotic. Former President
Trump stoked the flames, criticizing
Kaepernick and his allies and labeling them as
anti-the American flag, cops and the military.
In
response came an outpouring of defense,
celebrating Black Americans’ history of
protest. Former Attorney General Eric Holder
tweeted with a photo of Martin Luther King,
Jr., down on his left knee in Selma, Ala, in
1965. Holder added, “Taking a knee is not
without precedent, Mr. President. Those who
dared to protest have helped bring positive
change.” As King said in his Montgomery Bus
Boycott speech on December 5, 1955, “The great
glory of American democracy is the right to
protest for right.”
The
controversy of taking a knee during “The
Star-Spangled Banner,” brought heightened
attention to the song’s racist history.
Francis Scott Key, who penned the lyrics,
supported slavery and came from an influential
plantation family in Maryland. The song’s
third verse, no longer sung after the Civil
War, included the lyrics, “No refuge could
save the hireling and slave/From the terror of
flight or the gloom of the grave.”
When
patriotism is narrowly defined, it can only be
accepted and exhibited within the constraints
of its own nation’s intolerance.
Acts
of patriotism and protest, however, have yet
to accomplish ultimate goals of equality and
freedom from oppression. In depicting the grip
of white supremacist domestic terrorism on
Black lives, Malcolm X in 1965 said, “That’s
not a chip on my shoulder. That’s your foot on
my neck.”
In
2020, the world saw a now former Minnesota
Police officer murder George Floyd - with his
knee on Floyd’s neck.
This
Fourth of July, people will once again sing
“The Star-Spangled Banner,” recite the Pledge
of Allegiance, and reenact the Continental
Congress of 1776.
This Fourth,
however, will be different from the previous
ones. Juneteenth can no longer stand to the
side of America’s celebration of independence.
The newly recognized federal holiday should
encourage Americans to reconsider and expand
their ideas of patriotism, what loving one’s
country looks like. It highlights how
Juneteenth - and Black liberation - is
inextricably linked to America’s core values
of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
for all Americans that this July 4th is
celebrating.
