The Fight For America

 "All men are created equal" is a founding idea of the U.S. Constitution. Today we understand that it was an idea that was embedded into the constitution but not at all in reality. The Constitution talks boisterously about freedom, liberty, more perfect union, etc. But it also includes the 3/5th Compromise, which excludes Indians and "other persons." People of color, primarily black folks were counted as 3/5th of one individual. Additionally, the majority of the first 16 presidents were slave owners. This explains why chattel slavery did not and could not have been eliminated from the American landscape. 

Frederick Douglass came up with the idea that enslaved persons were actually citizens. Douglass and other abolitionist set out to see if they could gain support for this idea. 

For further clarity, read the book: "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass."

Douglass often stated that his greatest fear during slavery was less the danger to his body than the danger to his mind. The internalization of the idea that some people are somehow born to be free while others are born to be slaves. There's a moment in his first autobiography where he just stops and asked, "Why am I a slave?" 

It's an ancient existential question, "Why am I a slave?" "When these other white children I see are free to grow up, free to have books, free to be educated, free to roam and travel... Why am I a slave?"

Douglass felt the brutality and the exploitations of slavery and decided that he was going to fight. He traveled all over speaking about his experiences as a slave; about the need for Black Freedom.

Arguably, Douglass was the greatest orator of the 19th Century. He was so impressive that the Southern apologists spread the rumor that Douglass had never been a slave; that he had been brought in from some other country; that he was an actor, etc. From 1848 on, Douglass continued to bolster his profile. He publishes the North Star, which became incredibly popular among White Abolitionists. The theme of Frederick Douglass's argument: How to make the transition from slave to citizen.

The Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, NY, invited Frederick Douglass to speak on the 4th of July. Six-hundred people assembled a Corinthian Hall for this event. His audience was not just the 600 people in the Hall that day, his audience was us! His audience was the future. 

Those 600 people were mostly white men and women who generally agreed with Douglass. However, he knew that there was a difference between agreeing in theory and understanding profoundly the reality on the ground. In 1852, in order to really make these 600+ people understand the plight of newly freed slaves in America, he had to tell white folks the truth about themselves.

"Fellow citizens, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. Your father's succeeded, and today you reap the fruits of that success."

Douglass makes his audience feel very comfortable about the 4th of July. He says the founding Fathers were geniuses. They created this beautiful thing called the American Republic. It's a very calm opening. And then there's a moment where he says: 

"Pardon Me... Why am I called upon to speak here today? What do I or those like me have to do with your National Independence? The 4th of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak here today?" 

Then Douglass blast his audience by telling them some of the horrors of slavery; what the holds of the slave ships smelled like. The weeping of mothers when their children are sold away; the lashes of the whips, the burning of flesh... Takes them to the horrible heart of what slavery actually was …

"To rob them of their liberty, work them without wages, to beat them with sticks, knock out their teeth. Your shouts of liberty and equality, your sermons at Thanksgiving are mere hypocrisy. There is not a nation on earth, guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour."

"Allow me to say in conclusion... I do not despair of this country. The doom of slavery is certain and therefore I leave off where I began... with hope."

It's not so much what we are doing, it's what the opposition has been and continues to do to us, and that we have fed into that instrument. If you look at the hypocrisy in America, this country professes to be the most moral force in the history of civilization. We believe in the rituals of justice yet what we do is so unjust. The way in which we have conquered the earth, exploited resources, killing not just innocent human beings but destroying life of all creatures. Humanity and greed has corrupted the earth, the air, polluted the waters, killed the fish; basically destroyed and pillaged the gift bestowed upon us by the creative force that created this planet. 

The Great Migration

Between 1910 and 1970, over 8 million black citizens left former slave states looking for a better life. More than 500,000 ended up in Chicago, settling on the South and West sides of Chi-Town - bringing the food, culture, music, and desires for entrepreneurship with them. Unfortunately, because of 'Redlining', the city remained segregated.

"Redlining is a discriminatory practice that puts services - financial and otherwise - out of reach for residents of certain areas based on race or ethnicity. It can be seen in the systematic denial of mortgages, insurance, loans, and other financial services based on location rather than on an individual’s qualifications and creditworthiness. Notably, the policy of redlining is felt the most by residents of minority neighborhoods."

In other northern cities, Redlining became a debilitating, systematic, engineered segregation that literally demolished black communities.

"In our obscurity - in all this vastness - there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us." ~ Carl Sagan