WHAT’S THE 4^TH OF JULY FOR?

"When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that: ‘all men are created equal’ a self-evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim ’a self-evident lie.’ The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day for burning fire-crackers!"—Abraham Lincoln

This Fourth of July, the parks, shores, and play-places of the people will be filled to the brim with tens of millions of Americans who are enjoying their vacation weekend in the hot, summer sun. It is truly a holiday, and nothing else. But what does it celebrate?

We are told, from our infancy that this date is one which celebrates the blessings of freedom, and liberty from oppression. While we claim this, the truths taught us by bitter history reveals a long legacy of oppression, repression, and death. The history of this country is rife with the foul excrescence of human bondage and slavery; and the word "slavery" is absent (Until the 13^th Amendment) from the very text of the U.S. Constitution. Former President, and counsel for Amistad, John Quincy Adams made that point plain:

"The word slave and slavery are studiously excluded from the Constitution; circumlocutions are the fig-leaves under which these parts of the body politic are decently concealed" [(1841), _U.S., Appellants, vs. Cinque, and Others, Africans_ 39].

While millions of Africans born in America were held, in the eyes of a blinded "law", as human cattle (chattel), they were professing the "blessings of liberty" while millions labored in shackles.

And now, today, over a million African-American men are still in shackles laboring in new age slave plantations, being held under conditions that are the shadows of what their forefathers went through. What is liberty in the midst of these newly enslaved? Where is liberty in the prisonhouse of nations?

The courts, John Africa explains, are but "process houses for slavery" where "liberty" and "justice" are just words. Their practice is unfreedom, and that is the way of America.

In 1999 how is it that there are hundreds and thousands of new cells being built every few weeks in the land of the free? Because this is not the land of the free, but of the imprisoned, and the repressed.

The revered Frederick Douglass once asked, "What, to your slave, is the 4^th of July?" It was, he said, nothing but a sham. To his descendant people a century later, the same answer may be made. For, though it may be considered by most a day of rest and relaxation, the foreboding sight of a cop car in the overhead mirror is more than enough to dash such soft moments, and cases from across the country scream out the deadly reality of DWB—

Driving While Black. For men such as the West African in the Bronx, it wasn’t necessary to drive. He was SWB: Standing While Black. And in Black America, any of these nebulous "violations" carries an implicit death sentence.

Some may try to remember America’s Founding Slavemasters, if they wish: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, et al. But it might be more fruitful and more realistic to remember the names of Africans and African-Americans who could not practice the simple, alleged "right" to drive, to walk the streets, or to answer their doors in the night: Amadou Diallo. Tyesha Miller, Abner Louima, Dontae Dawson, et al. and on and on.

No doubt, their loving families will have somewhat subdued celebrations of America’s Day of Liberty on the Fourth.

For millions, that day will bring somewhat slight respite, for, too many Black families are trapped in the prison of poverty. Joblessness means, among other things, not having to worry about a holiday. What can any freedom mean when one can’t afford to do anything meaningful in this cash-mad society?

The Fourth of July is truly just another day.

Copyright 1999 Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.

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