Article by:
Dr. Gerald D. Curry
During the month of July, we celebrate Independence Day and several other important historical celebrations. When I grew up, I was taught Christopher Columbus discovered America, just to find out he really didn’t because there were already indigenous people living and thriving in America. Christopher Columbus landed in a place Europeans had not visited before, so they credited him for discovering this country. We no longer teach this fable, primarily because the Columbus story is simply not true, and highly disrespectful for indigenous people and others that would be later brought here to work the land.
I was taught Independence Day was about America achieving its freedom from Great Britain’s, which is true, but there were still over four million people living in the new United States that were not free but held in bondage. Frederick Douglass very eloquently explains the celebration of Independence Day to him and his fellow people of color on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York at the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, where he says:
“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. . . . I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies”. His proclamation confirms the hypocrisy of this nation. How can you claim to stand for freedom, while you enslave people?
It would not be until June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, when Union General Gordon Granger introduced General Order number 3, which reads.
“The people are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, become that between employer and hired labor. The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
The original Emancipation Proclamation was presented and read by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, two and a half years before General Granger reached Galveston, Texas. So, it stands to reason that the United States actual Independence Day for all its citizens is on June 19, 1865, and not July 4, 1776.
I’m not expecting everyone to jump on this bandwagon and demand a correction in our nation’s history, but I do believe people should be made aware of both the historical correction that’s deserve and hypocrisy we have been living.
Another significant date that should be celebrated in July is President Harry Truman signing Executive Order 9980 and 9981, which integrated the Armed Forces on July 26, 1947. This was an important piece of legislation because blacks were forced to serve in segregated units up until that point in our nation’s military. Black people have fought in every war since the Revolutionary War, that liberated our country from Great Britain, and continue to do so in a very big way.
Today, we celebrate the selection and appointment of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin being the first African American to serve in this post, and General Charles Brown as the first Chief of Staff for the United States Air Force, and recently announced as the next Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. He will be the second African American to serve in this post after General Colin Powell.
America has a lot to be proud of because we’re making progress. Our truths must be told, and even celebrated, because our freedoms are critically important to ensuring the world’s freedom is achieved. I’m glad to see the removal of Confederate statues and symbols replaced with freedom fighters in this country, because it finally aligns with America’s ethos and ideas of equity and equality. We must continue to strive to become that beacon that shines on the hill of freedom and justice. The United States has the longest active democracy known to mankind. To preserve it, we must adjust by correcting the ills of our past.