Despite the extraordinary 250th milestone of our democracy last week and despite the wondrously creative, joyful and unifying observances in every nook and cranny of the country, I couldn’t help but think that this 4th had a different feel from those past.

I can’t recall witnessing quite so many writings and podcasts and informal narratives expressing concern that our 250th seemed less an exercise in constructive remembrance, than an unsettling and disturbing reminder of the divisions, disappointments and excesses of the moment – that, at least at some macro level, the national ethic seemed to substitute the superficiality and contrivance of political gesturism for deep and meaningful analysis of where our country has traveled, where it finds itself and where it’s headed.

It prompted me to return to the speech that Frederick Douglass delivered on July 5, 1852 to the Rochester (NY) Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. It has since been dubbed “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Clearly, that was then and this is now. But Douglass’ analysis of those who don’t find their stories in the celebratory narratives of the 4th seemed hauntingly relevant today.

Douglass begins with a recognition of the undeniable courage and moral clarity of the Declaration of Independence:

[This day] carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act and that day.

But he pivots immediately to the hypocrisy of elevating those ideals when millions are enslaved:

The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed 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.

This is familiar rhetorical territory – a nation’s very founding document is the ultimate indictment of the nation’s barbaric, inhuman behaviors, laws, and norms:

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 revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

Read the full article about revisiting Frederick Douglass by Rip Rapson at The Kresge Foundation.