On Independence Day, Whose “Freedom” Do We Celebrate?
Independence Day is a celebration of “freedom.” A day filled with barbecues, fireworks, and red, white, and blue. But the reality is more grim, because not everyone in this country shares the “independence” we commemorate on this day.
In 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered an address in which he asked:
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.
Sadly, 245 years after the United States declared its independence, “freedom” remains in
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