I want to thank Robina and Jeff for hosting us tonight and for letting me spend 5 minutes talking about American democracy.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Stirring words written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, but we know that at the time he wrote them all men (and women) were NOT equal—and great disparities remain today.

Who controls the story? What was included and what was excluded? How does that enable the systemic inequality that culminated in the murder of George Floyd on May 25th? It’s up to us to listen and learn. I was proud to march alongside many of you on June 4th where over 2,000 people showed up in New Canaan to memorialize George Floyd and say that Black lives matter. I recognize these issues are deep, my learning will be a continual process, but let this be the beginning of knowing and doing better.

For these reasons, I’d like to share excerpts of a speech given by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852 in Rochester, New York when he was addressing the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society.

Douglass was born enslaved, escaped his captors and came North His oratory skills and intellect made him a powerful abolitionist. His subject is American Slavery, but his message is still too relevant today. Here are his words:

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I 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 denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery – the great sin and shame of America!

Oh! Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth 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. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Americans! Your republican politics are flagrantly inconsistent. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a byword to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! Be warned! Be warned! A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope.

P.S. I was going to deliver this speech at the Lewis' party on Friday, July 3rd, but there was a thunderstorm that night so the Lewis postponed their party by one day. I wasn't able to give the speech on Saturday, July 4th because Miki and I drove up to Camp Lafayette to pick up Lucas, then we stayed overnight in Lake Placid, and on the way home we stopped in East Dorset, Vermont to see Carlos Castellanos' new home and visit with his family (all his kids with their spouses and his grandkids were there and so was my mom). Since I couldn't be at the Lewis's party I had Jen Hladick deliver the speech for me and it was very well received.