The truth about the Fourth of July
Get the Point!
Growing up here in America, most of us were taught that Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence was one of the most revolutionary documents ever written; in some ways it was, but in others, it set the blueprint for what would become over a century of government sponsored violence against people of color!
As Jefferson vouchsafed a list of grievances against King George III, deep down in the dicta, the same man who had previously declared in the opening paragraphs that "all men are created equal" included the following passage: "King George III of Great Britain...has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."
Yes, Jefferson, a lawyer, architect, planter, slave master, father to several biracial children with his enslaved mistress Sally Hemings, and Third President of the United States, was unabashed in his feelings of white superiority—even within the text of the very document (Declaration of Independence) that will be celebrated all day today as a paragon of early American Enlightenment!
President Thomas Jefferson
Over the next 100 years, Jefferson and his kinsmen would violently put down "domestic insurrections" (slave rebellions) among rich white planters, and literally kill or displace from their lands millions of Native Americans, the ones he termed as "merciless savages," who fought back against the aggression of white settlers in the midwest and west!
And to think that your history books, just like mine, called all of this murder and mayhem against people of color during white westward expansion "Manifest Destiny," as if God Almighty sanctioned such wanton racism and naked murder and mayhem?
Such is why it's critically important to learn this history—all of this history, not just the feel good stories of the jingoists who wish to maintain the centuries old white supremacy status quo!
Lest we forget…
A few years ago, an alum of Tuskegee explained it to me like this. The country celebrates the 4th of July as a national holiday for them. WE celebrate it as the day Tuskegee was founded. As such, it’s the day that we did for ourselves and without the yoke of oppression.
Totally agree, Chuck. To truly be free we must know and acknowledge our entire history, the good, the bad, and the ugly, otherwise we're doomed to repeat it. Right now we're going backwards in our country and it needs to stop!!!