The Meaning of July 4th to Me

I love July 4^th celebrations. I love the family, friends, and community celebrations. After travelling outside of the country one year, I realized how much I enjoyed my nationality. It was the first time that I viewed myself as an American first, and an African-American second. Perhaps it was the first time that my ethnicity was secondary to those around me.

This year at our local community parade to celebrate July 4^th, I came face to face with the raw meaning of freedom. There I sat, 235 years after America claimed Independence. There I sat, 148 years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, the executive order that immediately freed 50,000 enslaved people. There I sat, 146 years after the 13^th Amendment abolished slavery. I sat in multi-race, multi-generation, and very diverse crowd at the parade. This celebration demonstrates our diversity in the small suburban, Midwestern community where I live and work.

I love this celebration. It reminds me of how much I love this country and the rights that so many have fought for me to possess. It is something I look forward to participating in each and every year. My son has marched in this parade for his entire school years. First as a scout, later in the high school marching band, and this year as a post graduation treat, he played in a float dedicated to jazz.  Every year I enjoy seeing former students and parents. We enjoy each other and our community.

This year, however, a young couple sat next to us. They had two young children and two senior citizens who joined them.  What happened at the parade this July 4^th is a testament to our long battle toward freedom. The older gentleman seemed to enjoy the start of the parade. He yelled greetings to the different groups and floats. Early on, I would describe him as a humorous curmudgeon. 

As the floats carrying our local community pageant of teenage girls passed, he made comments that seemed different. He and his wife could not believe there were black girls on the court. A beautiful African-American won this year. He actually said that awful. While annoyed, I knew the generation I was dealing with, and tried to practice forgiveness.  When a local African-American politician passed, he yelled out “There’s Old Black Joe”. This was after he said the politician’s real name…not anywhere near ‘Joe’ as a first name. I wondered if he even cared that I was six inches from him.

Processing through my irritation with this clearly well loved and respected man, he did carry some opinions about only the people of color as they passed that were not complimentary. He really said nothing horrible, but he certainly did not embrace the diversity of our community. His opinion, however, are what makes this country unique. They can be shared whenever he chooses. We are built on the ability of every one making their statements publicly. Just as I am using this forum to express my opinion, he has the right (as inappropriate as it may be) to relate an elected official to an enslaved old black man from a parlor song.

All day long, I had been reading social network posts of excerpts from a speech by Frederick Douglass in 1852. The speech, The Meaning of July 4^th to the Negro revealed a new perspective to the hypocrisy of the celebration of freedom while America still enslaved people living on this land. Perhaps we have moved forward. Perhaps we have not. The minds of some are still behind the “thin veil” that masks our true nature. Now that we have freed the people…the art is to free our minds.

The old man’s words were not shocking, but a reminder that we celebrate the freedom of government, people, and way of thinking. While this is all present, there is still much work to be done. He exercised his Constitutional right to express his opinions. All of his life he has been empowered to do so.

This is my expression of my opinion. Thankfully, with the grace of God and the courage of many, all of my life I have been empowered and encouraged to do so as well.