July 4th roots different for black Americans
By Andrew Dunn : The Herald-Sun
news@heraldsun.com
Jul 3, 2007 : 9:59 pm ET
About 150 years ago, Frederick Douglass -- an escaped slaved turned abolitionist -- used the Fourth of July to decry the hypocrisy of a slave-holding United States.
"What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?" he asked a crowd of 600 Rochester, N.Y., residents in 1852. "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."
Despite the successes of the mid-20th century civil rights movement and the focus on diversity, the country remains far from achieving true racial equality, some say. Others disagree, but July 4 is a good day to reflect, some add.
"We are outsiders, and are treated as such," said Kia Caldwell, a professor of African and Afro-American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill. "In terms of full civil equality, we still have a long way to go."
She cited last week's Supreme Court decision, which ruled against two race-based public school desegregation plans, as the most recent evidence of racism in the country.
The inequality, Caldwell said, also can be seen in education and incarceration rates, as well as the government's response to the massive damage Hurricane Katrina inflicted on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005 --a response, some contend, that broke down along racial lines.
"We maybe don't have the legalized racism," she said. "But we very much have institutionalized racism in this country."
But she said there is no quick resolution to the problem.
"We really need to acknowledge that we still have problems," Caldwell said, adding that many people think all the issues have already been addressed. "We have new codes and new ways of talking around it."
John Hope Franklin, emeritus professor of history at Duke University, was quick to point out that Thomas Jefferson owned nearly 200 slaves when he penned the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
"Jefferson could hardly have been more hypocritical," Franklin said.
But some say the racial divide is largely in the past.
Durham resident William Bryant said African-Americans largely view the holiday in the same way as whites.
"Maybe in the 1940s we might have used it to say we're not getting our slice of the American pie," he said, adding that, unlike Memorial Day or Labor Day, the Fourth of July is a more neutral holiday like Valentine's Day.
The race issue is just not one that frequently comes up on Independence Day anymore, some said.
"Bottom line, Afro-Americans are just like white Americans," Durham resident Shiana Johnson said. "We love our country."
This press release was published on 05 Jul 2007 and last modified on 05 Jul 2007. For more information, please contact Charity Greene at charity.greene@duke.edu