America Celebrated the Forth of July... The Slaves Didn't

On the evening of July 4, 1776, American was celebrating her long fought and well-deserved independence from the British ending years if fighting and bloodshed. However on that same evening, in many southern states, Africans were not celebrating because they weren't independent or free.

That doesn't make any sense. Ever since I was in high school I've been trying to understand the logic behind it, it's sort of an oxymoron. A country is celebrating its independence and at the same time the same country has members of another country held in captivity. As a country America felt as though they were being treated unfairly. The British imposed numerous unnecessary taxes and the country was incapable to freely operate and grow independently. All in the same breath American was doing the same thing, if not worse to the Africans living in America. Americans had more privileges than the Africans. Americans were free to sail across the ocean, colonize, wed and reproduce with out complications. African's were basically stolen, brought and forced from their homeland and sailed across an ocean under a ship packed tighter than sardines and forced to live and work in conditions that you & I would probably die from within months.

Fact is it would take another 87 years in 1863, one hundred days after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862, for former President Lincoln to free the slaves. That was an action prompted, not because slavery was morally wrong, but to end the War Between the States. It is a well-known fact that former President Lincoln owned slaves just as George Washington had. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued it would be another twenty years before, statistically, all slaves were "free". I ask you, as an African American, why would I indulge in the festivities with a country that kept my ancestors enslaved while they shot fire works into the night sky? My lineage was dreaming of the very thing this country was celebrating yet most would never live to see its existence. I never understood how America celebrated knowing full well what they were doing to the minorities in the country dubbed as the "Land of the FREE". The African's were enslaved and the Native American's were killed off and/or driven into the west off land they were on first.

What disturbs me the most is the fact that I didn't learn about this in grade, middle or high school, I didn't even learn it in college. I sat back and analyzed the holiday and the meaning behind by we, as a people, celebrate such a contradictable holiday. It hurts my heart to know that African Americans are celebrating side by side with a country that stripped their language, spiritual beliefs and culture while belittling the very existence of the African American person. Wake up people! We are celebrating something that excluded us almost five hundred years ago. Instead of running to your nearest retailer to purchase new clothes, shoes and cook-out equipment, African Americans should use this day as remembrance and evidence that the United States of America doesn't even know the meaning of the word Freedom because if she did then slaves would have celebrated along side any man of any color in any part of the country on the night of July fourth.

Yes the Fourth of July is the independence for America but I refuse to celebrate because the freedom of this country means nothing to my great relatives or me. I feel that as joining in the celebration I am deliberately insulting the very people who built this "great country" with their sweat, blood, tears & prayers, even their life. Instead I celebrate on September 22. Despite the fact thirty percent of the slaves at the time still weren't free yet, that date is the most accurate to the African American Independence.