TRIBUNAL AI0
A VIABLE, VALID REQUIREMENT
RESPONDING TO
BLACK NORTH CAROLINA
V0LIjMEIV,N0.4
WEDIVESDA\, JUNE 30,1976 $6.00 PER \TAR
2S CENTS
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North Carolina Black Publishers Association
North Carolina Press Association, Inc.
The 1976 Editions of THE TRIBUNAL AID will
be dedicated to America's bicentennial Cele
bration. with emphasis on contributions our Race
has made in the making of America, from
hirth to the present.
In 1976 there should not t>e a need to lift these
contributions from isolated sources. Our past
should ne interwoven into the fabric of our ci
vilization. because we are, except for the Indian.
America’s oldest ethnic minority.
We have helped make America what it was.
and what it is, since the founding of Virginia.
We ha\e been a factor in many major issues in
our history. There have been many misde(*ds
against us. yet we ha>e been able to live through
th(Mii anl tight hack. This is living proof of our
history.
Our role in the making of America is neither
w‘ll known or correctly known. Many positive
contributions ha>e esca^H^d historians and have
not found their wav into the pages of many
histon lxM)ks.
Wc will stri>e to give readers. Black and
white, many little-known facts alxmt our past
and it is hop*d that a pro|x*r p«*rsjM*ctive of our
history will be of valu* to persons who may
believe that as Black people wt* have* an un
worthy past; and hence, no strong claims to
all rights of other .Americans.
AMERICA’S INDEPENDENCE
JULY 4, 1852
Independence Day Speech
^^What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?^^
By Frederick Douglass
Perceiving full well the irony implicit in
his delivering an address which com
memorated the coming of independence
to the United States, Frederick Douglas
lost little time in laying bare the con
tradiction inherent in allowing slavery to
exist within a society professedly dedica
ted to individual freedom.
Fellow Citizens: Pardon me, and allow
me to ask, why am I called upon to speak
here today? What have 1 or those 1 re
present to do with your national inde
pendence? Are the great principles of po
litical freedom and of natural justice,
embodied in that Declaration of Indepen
dence, extended to us? And am 1, there
fore, called upon to bring our humble
offering to the national altar, and tocon-
fess the benefits, and express devout
gratitude for the blessings resulting
from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and
ours, that an affirmative answer could
be truthfully returned to these questions.
Then would my task be light, and my
burden easy and delightful. For who is
there so cold that a nation’s sympathy
could not warm him? Who so obdurate
and dead to the claims of gratitude, that
would not thankfully acknowledge such
priceless benefits? Who so stolid and
selfish that would not give his voice to
swell the halleluiahs of a nation’s jubilee
when the chains of servitude had been
torn from his limbs? I am not that man.
I am not included within the pale of
this golrious anniversary! Your high inde
pendence only reveals the immeasurable
distance between us. Xhe blessings in
which you this day rejoice are not en
joyed in common. The rich inheritance of
justice, liberty, prosperity, and independ
ence bequethed by your fathers is
shared by you, not by me. The sunlight
that brought life and healing to you has
brought stripes and death to me. This
Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You
may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a
man in fetters into the grand illuminated
temple of liberty, and call upon him to
join you in joyous anthems, were inhu
man mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do
you moan, citizens, to mock me, by ask
ing me to speak today?
Fellow citizens, above your national,
tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail
of millions, whose chains, heave and
grievous yesterday, _are today rendered
more intolerable by the jubilant shouts
that reach them. If 1 do forget, if I do
not remember those bleeding children of
sorrow this day, "may my right hand
forget her cunning, and niy my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To
forget them, to pass lightly over their
wrongs, and to chime in with the popular
theme, would be treason most scandalous
and shocking,, and would make me a
reproach before God and the world.
My subject, then, fellow citizens, is
“American Slavery.” 1 shall see this
day and its popular characteristics
from the slave’s point of view. Stand
ing here, identified with the American
bondman, making his wrongs mine, 1 do
not hesitate to declare, with all my soul,
that the character and conduct of this
nation never looked blacker to me than
on this Fourth of July. Whether we turn
to the declarations of the past, or to the
professions of the present, the conduct of
the nation seems equally hideous and re
volting. America is false to the past, false
to the present, and solemnly binds her
self to be false to the future. Standing
with God and the crushed and bleeding
slave on this occasion, 1 will, in the name
of humanity, which is outraged, in the
name of liberty, which is fettered, in the
name of the Constitution and the Bible,
which are disregarded and trampled
upon, dare to call in question and to de
nounce, with all the emphisis I can
command, everything that serves to per
petuate slavery-the great sin and shame
of America! “Iwill not equivocate; I will
not excuse”; 1 will use the severest
language I can command, and yet not one
word shall escape me that any man whose
judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or
who is not at heart a slave-holder, shall
not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some of my audi
ence say it is just in this circumstance
that you and your brother Abolitionists
fail to make a favorable impression on
the public mind. Would you argue more
and denounce less, would you persuade
more and rebuke less, your cause would
be much more lilely to succeed. But, I
submit, where all is plain there is nothing
to be argued. What point in the anti
slavery creed would you have me ar
gue? On what branch of the subject do
the people of this country need light?
Must I undertake to prove that the slave
is a man? That point is conceded already.
Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders
themselves acknowledge it in the enact
ment of laws for their government. They
acknowledge it when they punish desobe-
dience on the part of the slave. There are
seventy-two crimes in the State of Vir
ginia, which, if committed by a black
man (no matter how ignorant he be),
subject him to the punishment of death;
while only two of these same crimes will
subject a white man to like punishment.
What is this but the acknowledgment
that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and
responsible being? The manhood of the
slave is conceded. It is admitted in the
fact that Southern stature-bgoks are cov-
Photo shows study in Douglass's Home
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ered with enactments, forbidding, under
severe fines and penalties, the teaching
of the slave to read and write. When you
can point to any such laws in reference to
the beast of the field, then I may concent
to argue the manhood of the slave. When
the dogs in your streets, when the fowls
of the air, when the cattle on your hills,
when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles
that crawl, shall be able to distinguish
the slave from a brute, then I will argue
with you that the slave is a man!
For the present it is enough to affirm
the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is
it not astonishing that, while we are
plowing, planting, and reaping, using all
kinds of mechanical tools, erecting
houses, constructing bridges, building
ships, working in metals of brass, iron
copper, silver, and gold; that while we
are reading, writing, and cyphering, act
ing as clerks, merchants, and secretaries,
having among us lawyers, doctors, minis
ters, poets, authors, editors, orators, and
teachers; that while we are engaged in
all the enterprises common to other
men-digging gold in California, captur
ing the whale in the Pacific, feeding
sheep and cattle on the hillside, living
in families as husbands, wives, and chil
dren, and above all, confessing and wor
shipping the Christian God, and looking
hopefully for life and immortality beyond
the grave-we are called upon to prove
that we are men.
Would you have me argue that men is
entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful
owner of his own body? Youhave al
ready declared it. Must I argue the
wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a ques
tion for republicans? Is it to be settled by
the rules of logic and argumentation, as a
matter beset with great difficulty, involv
ing a doubtful application of the princi
ple of justice, hard to understand? How
should I lood today in the presence of
Americans, dividing and subdividing a
discourse, to show' that men have a natu
ral right to freedom, speaking of it rela
tively and positively, negatively and
affirmatively? To do so would be to make
myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to
your understanding. There is not a man
beneath the canopy of heaven who does
not know that slavery is wrong for him.
What! Am 1 to argue that it is wrong
to make men brutes, to rob them of their
liberty, to work them without wages, to
keep them ignorant of their relations to
their fellow men, to beat them with
sticks, to flay their flesh with the last, to
load their limbs with irons, to hunt them
with dogs, to sell them ^ auction, to
sunder their families, to knock out their
teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them
into obedience and submission to their
masters? Must 1 argue that a system thus
marked with blood and stained with pol
lution is wrong? No; 1 will not. 1 have
better employment for my time and
strength than such arguments would im
ply.
What, then, reriiains to be argued? Is it
that slavery is not devine; that God did
not establish it; that our doctors of divin
ity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in
the thought. That which is inhumen can
not be devine. Who can reson on such a
proposition? They that can, may; I can
not. The time for such argument is past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not
convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had
I the ability, and could reach the na
tion's oar. I would today pour out a fiery
stream of biting ridicule, blasting re
proach. withering sarcasm, and stern re
buke. For it is not light that is needed,
but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but
thunder. We need the storm, the whirl
wind. and the earthquake. The feeling of
the nation must be quickened; the con
science of the nation must be roused; the
propriety of the nation must be startled:
the hypocrisy of the nation must be e.\-
posed; and its crimes against God and
man nuisl be denounced.
What to the American sla\e is your
Fourth of July? I ansuer. a day that re-
ieals to him more than all other days of
the year, the gross injustice and cruelty
to which he is the constant victim. Tc'
him your celebration is a shenv, your
boasted liberty an unholy license; your
national greatness, swelling vanity; your
sounds of rcjoicing are empty and heart
less; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-
fronted impudence; your shouts of libertv
m
and equality, hollow mockery; your
pravcrs and hymns, your sermons and
thanksgivings, vvilli all your religious pa
rade and solemnity, are to him mere
bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and
hypocrisy-a this veil to cover up crimes
which would disgrace a nation of sav
ages. There is not a nation of the, earth
guilty of practices more shocking’ and
bloodv than are the people ol these
United States at this very hour.
Go where you may, seaicli where you
will, roam tiirougli all the monarchies
and despotisms of tlic Old World, travel
thniugh South America, search out every
alutse and wlien you have found the last,
lay your tacts by the side of the everv-
dav |iractices ot this nation, and you will
sav uitli me lluit. lor rcvolti)ig barbaritv
anil shameless hypocrisy, America reigns
w itliont a rival.
Biographical Sketch Frederick Douglass 1817-1895
FREDERICK DOUGLAS was born in
Tal!)ort County, Kastcrn Shore, Maryland
in 1817. He r(*ralls that his mother was a
slave with some Indian biood, he knew
nothing of his father, a white man.
In 1825 Douglass was sent to Baltimore
as a house servant, learning to read and
write at the side of his mistress. For his
resistance to the slave code, Douglass was
severely flogged and bore the scars on his
back for life. He worked his way to Balti-
mor‘, where he learned the trade of a
ship's caulker and was permitted to hire
out on his own time.
On September 3, 1838 Douglass es
caped to INew York disguised as a sailor.
He married Ann Murray, a free Black
woman he had courted in Baltimore. He
and his wife set out for New Bedford,
Massachusetts where he became a laborer.
After reading WILLIAM LLOYD GAR
RISON S newspaper, THK LIBERATOR,
Frederick Douglass found his calling in
the Anti-Sla\(‘ry movement. He was em-
ploy(*d as an agemt of the Massachusett
Anti-Slavery Society, taking part in the
Rhode Island campaign against the new
constitution proposing the disfranchise
ment »f Blacks.
In subsequent years. Douglass became
familiar on Anti-Slavery rostrums across
the country. II(‘ journeyed to the British
Isles where h(‘ lectured for two ye^rs on
slavery and women s suffrage and raised
enough mon‘v to purchase his freedom
and establish the famed newspaper,
NORTH STAR, upon his return to the
I nit(‘d States.
In I8.>2. Frederick Douglass delivered
one of his most celebrated orations in
Rochester on the occasion of INDEPEND—
ENCE DA^. W E PLBLISH THIS SPEECH
TODA>.
E.E.B. DuBois called Frederick Doug
lass THE NOBLEST SLA\E THAT EVER
SET IRl^E . He began public service
work in 1877. when he was appointed a
police commissioner of the District of
(^olundna b\ President l.lysses S. Grant.
In March the same year he was promoted
to Marshal in the District of Cohinibia
under Pn^sident Rutherfor B. Hayes.
He ser\ed until 1881 when he was named
Recorfler of Deeds and resigned in 1886
during the presidency of (trover Cleveland,
a Democrat.
Three years later, having campaign(‘fl
on behalf of Benjamin Harrison, Douglass
was appoint^d to his only overseas dip
lomatic post, that of MINISTER RESIDENT
AND CONSl L (;ENERAL TO THE RE
PUBLIC OF HAITI, and later, CHAR(;E
d AFFAIRES FOR SANTO DOMINf.O.
Then over 70 years of age, Douglas
was urged to decline the post, and d(‘vo!e
his full energies l» th* battle th‘n raging
against “the spirit of slavery". Souglass
felt that he could not decline lh«* oppor
tunity to serve as his nation s most promi
nent Black diplomat. Tht* Harrison ad
ministration, H'garding him as lh(‘ formost
Black of his day, felt that Douglas could
be of great value in eliminating obstacles
to American naval expansion and to the
extension of Ani(‘rican business interest
in the (Caribbean.
The Douglass home, perserv(‘d since
1916 by the National Association of Colored
Womens (Jubs, became part of the
National Park System on June 2.’>, 1964.
a gift from th* Frederick Douglass M(‘mori-
al and Historical Association.
1776 Honoring America's Bicentennial 1976
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