One
of the most emphatic formulations of Afrocentricity—when you think about it—is
the following passage from a speech give by Frederick Douglass
on July 5, 1852, at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of
Independence, held at Rochester's Corinthian Hall. “It was biting oratory, in
which the speaker told his audience, ‘This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.
You may rejoice, I must mourn.’ And he asked them, ‘Do you mean, citizens,
to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?’
Within the now-famous address is
what historian Philip S. Foner has called ‘probably the most moving passage in
all of Douglass' speeches.’’
What, to the American slave, is your
4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in
the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license;
your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and
heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of
liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and
thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere
bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up
crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the
earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the
United States, at this very hour.
No comments:
Post a Comment