One cannot discount or dismiss God in the progress and prosperity of this nation. With our pledge, we recognize and thank Him as being “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The Declaration of Independence declared this same justice and liberty more than 100 years earlier, although not given to the enslaved.
On this Fourth of July, 2023, I reflect on our history and those who lived, bled, and died in the muck and mire of slavery. Thank God freedom delayed after America’s independence from British rule was not freedom forever denied. Slaves, promised freedom, fought on the British side against the 13 slave-holding American colonies.
To say that the Fourth of July, the Declaration of Independence, was a sweet-smelling rose for white Americans but a bitter pill for the slaves in 1776 is an understatement. Frederick Douglass took issue not with July Fourth, a blessed day of God, but with the blasphemy and blameworthiness of American patriots who divined their independence while deriding and denying the human right of freedom for slaves.
What about the freedom of slaves? What about liberty and justice for all? God would have it; freedom is divine, not for one race but for all.
Frederick Douglass’ pen didn’t have enough ink to denounce slavery from sea to shining sea, but the unchanging truth of God, even America, had to let be.
Frederick Douglass, a former slave, stood in the presence of God, Truth, the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, New York, and a primarily white audience as he poured out his soul on July 5, 1852. On this day, 76 years after the Declaration of Independence, he made his scathing speech, What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? Frederick Douglass was among many black and white abolitionists who advocated and worked to secure freedom for the enslaved.
These words and many others rained down but didn’t convict white America’s conscience, humanity, or Christianity to free God’s people.
Douglass said, “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, today, pour out 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, and 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 its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”
Often God gives us truths for the good of one that is foundational for all. Such words He gave the founding fathers who birthed these inspired truths in 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.”
If one believes that God is Good and humans without God are evil, one must conclude that these words were inspired by none other than God.
Descendants of enslaved people, we know the Declaration of Independence further emboldened Frederick Douglass and millions of slaves to pursue and win liberty.
Yes, I celebrate the Fourth of July as a part of our history. Where enslaved Africans walked, lived, bled, and died are part of Black History.
Laws and people may delay what is right, but God denies not His own.
Liberty and justice for all will create a ‘more perfect union’ in America.
Happy Fourth of July 2023!