An Unholy License

douglassA timely message from Frederick Douglass (1852).

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 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, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

One thought on “An Unholy License

  1. Shelby

    Right! And for us today, it is for the North American prisoner, the Central American refugee, Trans* folks denied support, the people oversees that our military terrorizes….We have much work to do.

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