What to Black Women is the Fourth of July?

On July 5, 1852, in the decade preceding the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 which achieved the abolition of slavery, Frederick Douglass addressed the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York. He entitled his address “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Douglass is known as an abolitionist. In my view he should also be called a feminist because of the views he held and actions he took in support of women’s rights. In his speech, Douglass referred to the celebrations of Independence Day in the United States. However, his speech was centered on constitutional and values-based arguments against the continued existence of enslavement in the United States.

Using his oratorical skills, Douglass said that positive statements about American values such as citizenship, liberty and freedom were offensive to enslaved people because they had no citizenship, liberty or freedom. At one point in his speech, Frederick Douglass posed these rhetorical questions:

“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? … 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.”

Douglass spoke very openly and forcibly about the hypocrisy in Christianity that led many churches to support enslavement. However, he argued that with the support of the church and focus on what the Bible is actually saying, the church could actually be a force for ending slavery.

It was with hope and optimism that Frederick Douglass said that the United States could change. Just as the U. S. had been transformed from being a colony of Britain to an independent nation, Douglass believed that the end of enslavement in the United States was near. One feels his optimism in these words that he spoke:

“Cling to this day. Cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight…At a time like this, scorching iron, not convincing argument, is needed…It is not light that is needed, but fire. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake…”

Today, as Black women, and certainly as members of NCNW, we can pose a question that is similar to the one that Frederick Douglass posed in 1852. Namely, what to Black women is the Fourth of July?

In posing this question, we of course acknowledge that we are in an era that is many years since the times when there were horrific actions against Black women that took place during the period of enslavement, reconstruction and the Jim Crow era. And, of course, we acknowledge that while focusing on this question for Black women, we are in no way suggesting that all is well for Black men. How could we, given the recent outbursts of racial terror against George Floyd and so many other Black men.

The 4th of July is the day that commemorates that on July 4, 1776, 13 colonies claimed their independence from England, an event that eventually led to the formation of the United States. As Independence Day is celebrated this year, hopefully with full attention to the guidelines that everyone should follow in the middle of this Covid-19 pandemic, I want to pose a number of questions about the current status of 22 million Black women in the United States:

• Why does the pay for Black women range from 47 to 67 cents for every dollar paid to White Non-Hispanic men?
• Why are there no Black women CEOs in corporate America?
• Why do White women hold nearly 4 times as many seats as women of color hold on corporate boards?
• Why is it that for Black women only 8 of every 1,000 bachelor degrees are in engineering compared with 89 of every 1,000 White male bachelor’s degrees?
• Why do half of all Black women have discontinuous insurance coverage between pre-conception and delivering their babies compared to approximately a fourth of White women?
• Why are Black women two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women?
• Why do the killings of unarmed Black men by police receive more attention than the killings of unarmed Black women by police?
• Why is it that four in ten Black women experience physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetimes? White women, Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islanders report lower rates.
• Why are Black women 2 ½ times more likely to be murdered by men than White women are?
• Why are Black women incarcerated at a rate that is twice that of White women?
• Why do White men constitute 60% of the U.S. House of Representatives and 71% of the Senate while women of color constitute 8.8% and Black women constitute only 4.3% of the total 535 members of congress?
• Why do many Black churches remain male dominated and resistant to Black women holding leadership roles?

After posing these questions, I conclude with two additional ones:

• Why are Black women still the victims of the double jeopardy of systemic racism and systemic sexism? And, as members of NCNW, what must each of do to bring Black women closer to a day when we can celebrate freedom and justice for ourselves and for all in our families and communities?

Onward!

Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Ph.D.
Chair & 7th National President