What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”, remains a piercing indictment of American hypocrisy.

“This Fourth of July is YOURS, not MINE,” he declared. “You may rejoice, I must mourn.” 

Douglass, a formerly enslaved man and leading abolitionist, exposed the stark contradiction between America’s celebration of freedom and its brutal perpetuation of slavery. His words resonate today as Black communities still grapple with systemic oppression... a reality made even more jarring when juxtaposed against the uncritical patriotism often displayed during Independence Day.  

The irony is palpable. On the eve of July 4th, I watched as a group of young Black children, oblivious to this history, set off fireworks under the supervision of an elderly white woman. The scene was a microcosm of a broader issue: the disconnect between Black America’s historical struggle and the performative celebrations that ignore it. This dissonance is not accidental; it is symptomatic of a deeper, more insidious problem... the deliberate miseducation and economic disempowerment of Black people.  

One of the most crippling obstacles to Black liberation is the financial drain of organized religion. Black communities donate an estimated $7–8 billion monthly to churches, yet these funds rarely circulate back into Black neighborhoods. Instead, they subsidize opulent megachurches, untaxed institutions, and a sprawling religious-industrial complex. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, funnels a portion of every collection plate into its vast empire, while Black parishioners remain economically stifled. This is not investment; it is exploitation.  

Theological manipulation compounds this deprivation. The figure of Jesus Christ... a mythologized construct of Western imperialism... has been weaponized to enforce subservience. Historically, Christianity justified slavery (“Servants, obey your masters”) and later pacified Black resistance with promises of a heavenly reward. But the apocalyptic threat of hell and the idolization of a white Jesus are fabrications, designed to control minds and wallets. As the late Bishop Carlton Pearson argued, the doctrine of eternal damnation is a tool of psychological oppression. If Black communities are to achieve true autonomy, we must confront the fraudulence of these narratives.  

Spiritual empowerment does not require intermediaries. The divine is not confined to pulpits or collection plates; it resides within. We are energy... carbon, nitrogen, water... recycled through millennia, temporarily housed in physical form. Reincarnation, not rapture, governs the soul’s journey. Yet, centuries of indoctrination have convinced Black people to outsource their spirituality (and wealth) to institutions that profit from their fear.  

The path to liberation is clear but fraught: reject the economic and theological shackles of organized religion. Imagine if that $8 billion monthly were redirected to Black businesses, education, and infrastructure. The Tulsa Race Massacre—the destruction of “Black Wall Street”—could never happen today if financial power were consolidated in our hands. But this demands a radical awakening: an understanding that freedom requires self-reliance, not divine supplication.  

Douglass’s question lingers: What, to the oppressed, is your celebration? Until Black America divorces itself from the myths and mechanisms of its subjugation, true independence will remain an illusion. The firework sparks will fade, but the chains (financial, spiritual, and psychological) will endure.