Living Reconciled
Living Reconciled
EP. 55: Reflecting on July 4th Through Frederick Douglass's Eyes
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Join us on this compelling episode of Living Reconciled as we take a look at the 4th of July through the powerful words of Frederick Douglass. Neddie and Brian delve into Douglass's life and his iconic speech, "The Meaning of July the 4th for the Negro," delivered in 1852. Tune in for a great discussion on the broader implications of freedom, particularly around Juneteenth and the 4th of July, and how we can renew our understanding of unity in America.
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This is Living Reconciled, a podcast dedicated to giving our communities practical evidence of the gospel message by helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured for us by living with grace across racial lines. Hey, thanks so much for joining us on episode 55 of Living Reconciled. My name is Brian Crawford and I serve as the host, and I'm with my co-host and great friend, Nettie Winters Nettie- how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great, man. I am actually really excited about the podcast today. I'm excited the fact that we're celebrating the 4th of July in a few days or a few months, I don't know. Let me leave that alone.
Speaker 1:Yes, we are celebrating the 4th of July, nettie, and that makes for an interesting discussion today. First, before we get too far into that discussion, I do want to give a quick shout out to some friends and supporters of this podcast, folks like Nissan, st Dominic's Hospital, atmos Energy Regions Foundation, brown Missionary Baptist Church, christian Life Church, ms Doris Powell, mr Robert Ward, ms Ann Winters. Thank you so much for everything that you do. It's because of what you do that we're able to do what we do. And while I have you guys, let me point you to September, the 26th of 2024. It's a special day for us because we will be hosting a celebration, 31 years here at Mission Mississippi, in which we have been on the journey of pursuing racial healing and Christian reconciliation in this state and abroad. One of the ways in which we culminate that work is the Living Reconciled Celebration, and that's taking place at the Brandon Civic Center in Mississippi on September the 26th. It will be a conference and banquet all on that day, and we would love for you guys to come and join us. Our theme for this year is living reconciled by loving all our neighbors, and we would love for you to come and join us as we talk about all things neighboring and reconciliation. On that day there's going to be great dialogue, great discussion we may even record a podcast while we're there and we're going to have a great celebration that evening with great food, and we want you to be a part of that Again. September, the 26th, living Reconciled Celebration Brandon Civic Center. We would love for you to come and join us. Ticket information can be reached or can be had by reaching out to us at grace at Mission, mississippi dot O-R-G.
Speaker 1:A little bit about Frederick Douglass's speech, nettie, that he shared on July the 5th of 1852. And the speech was entitled the Meaning of July the 4th for the Negro. I thought it would be important for us Nettie to take a moment to dive into Douglass's speech and his thoughts here, because oftentimes there is tension in the celebration of the 4th of July. There's this holiday in which we're celebrating the independence of America from Great Britain. That was a time in which there was tyranny that the colonists were trying to break away from, and they did and they celebrated, and that breaking away from that tyranny is celebrated through the Fourth of July celebrations.
Speaker 1:But there's tension in that at times there's some people who say I'm not all that excited about celebrating the 4th of July and I think better than most Douglass, gets underneath why that tension exists. And so I wanted to have a conversation about Douglass's speech that, hopefully, may shine a little light on that tension and may help us, even as we begin to enter into our holiday celebration for the 4th of July, help us think more reflectively and more soberly on the cost of freedom and the price of freedom for all. And so, nettie, as you think about Douglass' speech, the meaning of the 4th of July, or the meaning of July the 4th for the Negro, talk to me about some of those immediate things that stand out for you about Douglass on that day.
Speaker 2:You know what stands out to me in Douglass' speech as part of my history of celebrating the 4th of July. One of the ironic things he says is that the 4th of July is not the 4th of July. Talking to the slave owners and other free folks white folks specifically said the 4th of July doesn't include me. So, therefore, why are you asking me to celebrate something that does not include me? Here you are celebrating the freedom from the tyranny of the British, from England, but at the same time, you're all slaves and I'm a slave and I had to. You know, what was really ironic to me is that he had to flee to keep his freedom to the very place that we're celebrating separating from.
Speaker 1:That's a big piece of information that people don't know about Douglass. By the way, the British bought his freedom Right.
Speaker 2:They gave him the ability to learn how to read and write and speak, and if you listened to his speech, you understand that it's got this.
Speaker 1:British flavor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's British flavor and tone and you know people would see it here today. They would say, where are you from? I know you're not from around here, you know, are you a United States citizen? Are you a British citizen? Because you know they would have that accent.
Speaker 2:So the challenge in all of this and his speech and things like that's been a tension for me and for other folks as African-Americans for a long time is that here we are celebrating the 4th of July since 1870. Are you listening to me? 1870. And we really just got where we can have some sense of celebration. In the 1960s in the United States of America we could celebrate the fact that there had to be a forced legislation of the United States of America that's been celebrating their freedom from British since 1870. America that's been celebrating their freedom from British since 1870. But in the 1964-65 civil rights there had to be forced legislation in a sense for us to even have the right to vote, the right to look like we're citizens, to act like we're citizens, and only then it was a precondition on how we could celebrate preconditions on. It was a precondition on how we could celebrate preconditions on.
Speaker 2:So when I read his speech and then I think about Juneteenth. You know we talked about Juneteenth, sure, in the last episode, right, and so you know I was talking about that. Juneteenth ought to be a prelude to July 4th, absolutely so. When I hear Douglas say what he says about what does the 4th of July mean to? At that time we were Negroes. We're African-Americans. Today, we made some progress. Thank you for that, you can admit it. So I'm thinking when I listen to Frederick Douglass, I'm listening to an eloquent, articulate young man. What? 27 years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. At the time when he shared that message in 52, he was actually a 34, but still a very young man. What 27 years old?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. At the time when he shared that message in 52, he was actually a 34, but still a very young man. Very young man, but anyway. But here's a man that was how do I put this His ancestor and his fellow citizens, as it relates to slavery and things, was being beat and tormented if they were caught trying to read or write or articulate themselves, and so the irony of him being invited to speak on the 4th of July was like really, is that injury, uh, insult to injury, right, a kind of thing, and he refuses to speak on the 4th?
Speaker 1:of July. Right doesn't speak on the 4th of July, but Right doesn't speak on the 4th of July, but instead on July the 5th.
Speaker 2:July, the 5th because he said it would be well. He didn't say it like this, but my point being that for him to make this speech on the 4th of July would have been hypocritical. He could make it on July the 5th, because it was not the celebration of the United States' freedom. So he says you know I freedom. So he says you know, I don't want to do it on the fourth because there's still people in this country Insular got free Right, particularly my kinsmen Right Right.
Speaker 2:He himself was only afforded this because the British had freed him, not because the United States had freed him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, back up a little bit. So in 1818, frederick Douglass is born, and he is born into slavery, absolutely 1818. And he remains a slave all the way through 1838. Not because he's freed, but because at age 20, he escapes from slavery dressed as a sailor, and so, somehow, being dressed as a sailor, escapes slavery, ends up in new york city, where he's there for a time and then joins a uh, abolition, abolitionist movement. And then, once he joins the abolitionist movement, eventually he writes his own biography, uh, the narrative of frederick douglas, which gained so much popularity that the danger of him being returned back to slavery increases. And so, just a few years later, he has to flee the country. And where he goes to like you said, nettie, the irony of it all goes to Britain, and there he finds refuge. Tell me, god doesn't have a sense of humor, man. So he finds refuge in Britain, and then he remains.
Speaker 2:Hold on, think about that, what you just said. They invite him to speak on the 4th of July, where they're celebrating freedom from the British. Here he is in Britain and getting the same emancipation that supposedly the 4th of July represent for the United States, for the people. You can't make this stuff up. It's like okay, here I am with the British, and the American folks are celebrating the fact that they've won their freedom from the British, and here the British is giving me sanctity and safety and freedom that I can't enjoy in this new America. They're celebrating Get away from you guys. You guys are giving me what they fought so hard for, absolutely, and instead of them exercising that for all the citizens, black or white or Hispanic or whatever the case might be, they've enslaved the minority or the African-American folks. And here I am fleeing for my life in Britain, the very place I can't. I just that just blows my mind.
Speaker 1:Well, you and you just only scratched the surface, and that is they. They, the British, as you mentioned earlier buy his freedom back, which is why he's able to return to America.
Speaker 2:Right. That's the only reason he's able to return back to America, because they buy it. And still, when he gets back to America, even though they bought his freedom back, that he has freedom now out of the free prison, he's not enslaved anymore quote, unquote but he still is treated as though he is enslaved or treated less than the first class citizenship that afforded him by being brought out of slavery. He doesn't get that. And then he's invited, ironically, to speak on the 4th of July. Douglass makes his speech. He says okay, y'all had opportunity. My word's not here, but in essence he said y'all had opportunity to do what the Britain did for me with my linkage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he's here 1852, just 13 years before the, or actually June, 13 years before Juneteenth, actually only 11 years before the Emancipation Proclamation in 63. But in 52, he's making this speech ironically right after the Declaration of Independence is read. So that's the backdrop. There's this ceremony where we're celebrating the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 2:You know two things. Again, I think this is an insult to injury. They're going to read the Declaration of Independence and then look at him and say it's all you Doug. And Doug is like what is this? You're going to read a document that gives you freedom and then you're going to invite me to follow that when I don't have the freedom that you have. He says in the.
Speaker 1:In the speech Frederick Douglass makes, that draws that line of distinction. Eddie, he says why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us, and am I therefore called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar and to confess the benefits of expressed devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? And so, just out of the gate, douglas makes the point of asking why does the 4th of July mean anything for the African slave, the black slave, african-american? Why would it mean anything in this moment, given the conditions that we are faced with? Why would it mean anything for them? And then he says this just a few moments later. He says such is not the case, meaning that, no, I'm not free and those that I represent are not free.
Speaker 1:He says I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common the rich inheritance of justice and liberty and prosperity and independence queefed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This 4th of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, but I must mourn. And to drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today?
Speaker 2:End quote by asking me to speak today, end quote. In other words, he's saying the ultimate insult, the audacity of this, because you know, he was speaking to the white audience, not to the African-American audience, and I think it was a group of both African-Americans and white that invited him to come speak. Abolitionist movement, right and so. But even at the same time, the abolitionist white folks in the room was advocating for freedom and whatever else. He's kind of giving them a part too. Yeah, he poking at them too. If you really appreciated the position that you put me in, or understanding my plight of how I'm seeing, maybe you shouldn't have read that thing just before I got here. You shouldn't have read the Declaration of Independence and talk about all the freedom and rights to happiness and all of these great things which I do not have access to. But she invited me to come speak. Okay, let me just let you have it then, right? So if you're going to put me in this position, I cannot resist the urge to let you know what I really think. Right?
Speaker 1:But go ahead, doug, tell him what you think and he did, he did, he did, and part of the mastery of his speech that day was to help those that were in the audience be forced to look at the plight of another Right. So we're not going to just simply celebrate without looking at the horrors and the plight of another. Looking at the horrors and the plight of another, and this speech is going to force you to reckon not just with your own freedom, but with also the bondage in which others are experiencing while you celebrate your freedom from bondage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what he's saying. It's great in one sense that we celebrate Absolutely we celebrate, he said. That's a great thing but at the same time, have some sense as wisdom and some concern and care for those that don't have this freedom. Maybe you might not want to go on a plantation and say to the folks let's celebrate the 4th of July. You might want to go on a plantation and say to them I'm going to do everything I can to get you in a position that you can enjoy, and I think that's the reason we're talking about it today. What can we do to help every citizen enjoy the benefits of a Fourth of July? Since we've been enslaved before doing it after 1776, since we've been enslaved before doing it after 1776, we really don't have the insight, the understanding, the expressions of, even internally, to have a joy in our hearts of celebration when we don't benefit from that which we are celebrating.
Speaker 1:That goes back to the conversation we had a few weeks ago about freedom, the story of freedom being on a continuum. It's absolute. It was a journey, and so when we think about the 4th of July, we should think about it as part of the journey. We shouldn't think about it as the end, because, as you mentioned, 1776, that Declaration of Independence was signed, but there's a whole 87 years before that other document was signed, the Emancipation Proclamation, and another two years, two and a half, before 13th Amendment is ratified, and then all the other things that come after that right. And so the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the document that signifies our celebration of the July, of Fourth of July, was only one document in a long journey towards freedom for all people, and Douglass' is highlighting that in the clearest of terms.
Speaker 1:You know, when I read Douglass' speech, I think about what we've been talking about a lot this year this call by God for us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and I think you and I had this conversation earlier One of the most difficult tasks and assignments that God has given us is to love our neighbor as ourselves, because we have to see our neighbor with the same value and worth that we see us, and Douglas is kind of bringing that to bear on this audience. In this speech, you guys are celebrating your freedom, and rightly so. Freedom is a good thing for you, but to love your neighbor as yourself. In fact, douglass spends a lot of time talking about the talking about the spiritual hypocrisy, not just a political hypocrisy, you know, in the country, continental hypocrisy, but he spends a lot of time talking about the religious hypocrisy in this speech as well.
Speaker 1:In this speech as well, because he's saying you're missing the opportunity to see the African, african-american slave in the image of God and as your brother, a person that is that you're supposed to love like you love you.
Speaker 1:And if you love them like you love you, then, as you celebrate this independence, you should not be content with seeing them in chains, but you should be celebrating this independence while fighting relentlessly for their independence. And so even today, nettie, you know, just, you know, fast forwarding, fast forwarding into 21st century, fast forwarding into 21st century, loving neighbor, seeing ourselves in the neighbors around us, is still one of the most difficult tasks and assignments that God has given us. To enjoy our freedoms, to enjoy all sorts of things while having basically a cognitive dissonance and as it relates to what everybody else around us is experiencing whether it be poverty, whether it be lack of freedom, whether it be hardships, suffering it can be easy too easy at times for us to not love our neighbor well, in that sense where we enjoy and we celebrate all these things that are happening for us, while being completely dismissive of the plight of our brothers and sisters around us.
Speaker 2:In our study of the book of the cast.
Speaker 1:Isabel Wilkerson's cast.
Speaker 2:Right. What she described is not her book. She described what reality talks about as to her relation to the caste system and in that she describes how slaves are being beaten and life-threatening to their way of being if they don't act like a certain way or do things a certain way. Or do things a certain way have to act happy, yeah, act happy, be thankful that the fact that you were a slave. Grateful, yeah, you ought to be grateful and wow that's. And if you don't, we beat you until you do or kill you.
Speaker 2:And when I think about all of this stuff surrounding freedom and how that should work out. God, you said, gave us an assignment to love our neighbors as ourselves. What God's word articulates for me? This isn't something from God, but what it articulates for me when the love of God in you causes you to think and act like God, this would not be an issue. So, loving your neighbor as yourself, or Jesus says in John 13, 34 and 35, that love one another as I have loved you. In other words, we ought to be expressing the love and compassion and all the grace and mercy that God has extended to me. I ought to be celebrating the fact that I can extend that to you which raises neighbor love to a whole nother level.
Speaker 1:This is one thing to see. It's one thing for me to see Nettie as I see me. It's a whole nother thing for me to see Nettie as God sees me Sees, nettie, and you, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so Jesus says they will recognize your Christianity, your discipleship of me or in me. They are recognized that by your love for one another. So one of the deep, penetrating discipleship characteristic of a follower of Christ is that you love those who love you but, more important, you got to love those who hate you, love those that despise you, that do evil. Pray for those. You got to do all these things to be recognized as that.
Speaker 2:And so Doug's point in all of this, and our point in having this discussion, is that we are missing the mark as Christians in a big way, as it relates to celebrating, on the one hand, the freedom and enjoyment and the benefits of one class of folks or one society of folks simply because of the color of your skin, and watching in that celebration how other people don't have that benefit because of the laws or the policies or these United States of America, how we have man.
Speaker 2:That's to me it's like you already enjoy and celebrate the freedom you have for me, even allowing you to do what you do, whatever status or place in life you are. You ought to be excited to celebrate that, because I can make it worse, and you ought to be thanking me that I haven't made it worse this discussion about Juneteenth, the discussion about the 4th of July. Listening to the speech by Douglas, it moves me to work even harder. It moves me to celebrate even harder. It moves me to see everybody's life and a lot of people are celebrating the 4th of July, actually doing it with sincerity, holding us apart, anticipating, expecting and thinking that everybody, including me, you and everybody else, regardless of your ancestry or your history, and all of this, that everybody has a privilege now of being free, and so forth. But that simply is not the case.
Speaker 1:Still a journey, right's still a journey.
Speaker 2:Right, it's still a journey, and you know hopefully this podcast would help some folks rethink, research and revise or renew their vision and their celebration of Juneteenth and July 4th in a way that it becomes an American history celebration of freedom for everyone, and that is one is. You know, until everybody's free, nobody's free, and so maybe this discussion that we're having will call some folks out there to rethink all of this stuff and look at it from a perspective that we're all one here in America, especially when it comes to the church and how the church contributing to the plight that Douglas talked about and when you said it was done 1852.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 1852. Yeah, you know, Douglas doesn't leave us without hope. There's a passage here that that really kind of highlights the fact that Douglas is not leaving us without hope. There's a passage here that really kind of highlights the fact that Douglas is not leaving us without hope. Towards the end, he says in conclusion. In fact, in conclusion, allow me to say, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. The arm of the Lord is not shortened and the doom of slavery is certain. I therefore leave off where I began, with hope Absolute, While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains and the genius of American institutions.
Speaker 1:My spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trout round in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trout round in the same old path of his fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long-established customs of hurtful character could formally fence themselves in and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confided and enjoyed by a privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea as well as on the earth. Wind, steam and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated.
Speaker 1:And so Douglas had this hope that as the nations were growing more advanced and people were getting closer and sentiments and thoughts were changing, that even slavery too would meet its end. And, as we know, just 15 years later for Douglass we saw that in. We saw that that initial step to the end of Independence in his closing as a document where its highest ideas are worth protecting and seeing that all get a chance to reap the fruit. That douglas highlights that because it's a beautiful document.
Speaker 1:1776 is a beautiful document and the celebration is a beautiful celebration as long as we, when we celebrate, understand that we are, that we have always been operating on a continuum and on a journey towards freedom, and so 1776 wasn't the end of that journey. In fact, in many ways it was just the beginning. It was just the beginning. It was just the beginning, and so learning how to celebrate these holidays with that kind of understanding and that kind of soberness or sobriety, rather, I think, is important as we think about celebrating these holidays, I think is important as we think about celebrating these holidays.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Brian. I think Douglas said it best when he said, even though I painted a picture of how the distinct difference between my freedom and celebration and your freedom and celebration I'm still on the journey towards freedom and I have hope that one day I'll be there, similar to King's speech. So you know, and so as we join it today, you know, at least Juneteenth now is a holiday. So we're on that continuum, as you say, on this journey towards freedom, and the founders of 1776, when they did the independence, declamation of independence, that they were looking at it from that perspective, that we're getting there and we're on a journey and we have the freedom that we have today.
Speaker 2:Not like ideally, like I don't think there is such thing in an ideal sense but I'm challenged from the perspective of being a Christian. I'm challenging the Christians from the perspective of understanding Jesus's commands and assignment to us that we love one another as he has loved us. And you're right, Love your neighbor as yourself is an assignment from God and we should be carrying that assignment out with great celebrative opportunity because we have received it. We ought to be celebrating the fact that we have received it, but also sharing in that celebration when making sure others receive it as well, and that we love one another as he commanded us to love, and take this assignment as loving your neighbor seriously enough that we do that in a way that highlights the reconciliation we have in Christ.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. When you think about Juneteenth, when you think about the 4th of July, be reminded that this celebration of freedom is also a call, amen. It's a call to pursue the common flourishing and the good and the peace and joy of not just yourself and your home, and even your neighborhood, your own country, but to pursue it wherever it may not exist and to use whatever time, talent and treasure that the Lord is giving you to participate in that call.
Speaker 2:One final thing is that Douglass himself, as he wrote this, alluded to the fact that I can celebrate, in a sense, because we're moving toward a continuum of freedom, but at the same time, I have the freedom, and an example of the freedom that I have is the fact that you would invite me to come to speak Absolutely On the 4th of July. And as today and as a Christian, we have reasons to celebrate on the 4th of July. Just understand that all the things that surround the 4th of July and how things have happened is sometimes that's where the tension follows. And I'm saying celebrate the fact that we have the privilege of the opportunity now maybe not then, but now be celebrated as free citizens, and that we have a charge and a ministry to go forward and help others do the same.
Speaker 1:Amen. Thank you, guys, so much again for joining us on this episode. Feel free to subscribe to our podcast. Go to any podcast app. Search for Living Reconciled. You'll find us. Subscribe but also, like our episodes, share our episodes with friends, family, church members, others who you believe are passionate about the work of reconciliation. We would love and very much appreciate if you would do that for us. It's been a great episode. This is Brian Crawford with my good friend Nettie Winters signing off saying God bless, god bless. Thanks for joining Living Reconciled. If you would like more information on how you can be a part of the ongoing work of helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured, please visit us online at missionmississippiorg or call us at 601-353-6477. Thanks again for listening. Thank you.
