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What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th 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" (Douglass).

In this quote, Fredrick Douglass, while addressing the crowd gathered to celebrate the independence of the U.S, explains how this day holds no meaning for men and women who have been the victims of grave injustices at the hands of people who celebrate the triumph of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He argues that to an American slave this celebration of freedom and denunciation of tyranny is pure hypocrisy. For a nation to boast about its greatness, liberty, and equality and celebrate a day of freedom on one hand and oppress innocent men and women, on the other hand, is absolutely criminal.

I chose this quote because of how Fredrick Douglass unveils the hypocrisy of American slavery. He is candid in how any celebration in the name of liberty, equality, triumph over tyranny is offensive to every individual who has been denied these most basic rights. He took this opportunity to hold a mirror up to the U.S and its practices and reveal how they contradict the very ideals this nation was built on.

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