Zinn Education Project: People's History of Fourth of July

[marmar]

People’s History of Fourth of July
A collection of more than a dozen people's history stories from July 4th beyond 1776. The stories include July 4th anniversaries such as when slavery was abolished in New York (1827), Frederick Douglass's speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" (1852), the Reconstruction era attack on a Black militia that led to the Hamburg Massacre (1876), protest of segregation at an amusement park in Baltimore (1963), and more.


1827: Slavery Abolished in New York.

On July 4, 1827, slavery was abolished in New York, following a gradual emancipation law that went into effect in 1799. However, as historian James Horton explains in a PBS interview, New York continued to benefit economically from the system of human bondage. “New York really provided much of the capital that made the plantation economy in the South possible.”

Learn more in these two resources by Alan Singer, the book New York and Slavery: Time to Teach the Truth and an article, “Reclaiming Hidden History: Students Create a Slavery Walking Tour in Manhattan” about how he and his students organized a tour of the hidden history of slavery in New York.

1831: William Watkins Speaks for Black Americans on Independence Day



William Watkins wrote an “Independence Day” lamentation and reflection for Black Americans under the penname of “A Colored Baltimorean” on July 4, 1831 (published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation):

On this great festival of civil and religious liberty, while ten millions of freemen are celebrating in “festive songs of joy” the magnanimous achievements of the “departed great” . . . while they are proclaiming in tones of thunder, from centre to circumference of this widespread Union, the “self-evident truths,” that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights . . . I, feeling the injustice done me by the laws of my country, retired from the exulting multitude . . . to contemplate the past and the present as connected with our history in the land our nativity.

Johns Hopkins University professor Martha Jones, PhD, writes that “It was a moment filled with despair and hope in equal measure. His despair was a response to the rise of a colonization movement and Black laws — schemes aimed at so degrading the lives of former slaves that they would seek refuge in Liberia, Canada, or the Caribbean. Watkins’ hope was rooted in a budding social movement, that of abolitionism. There, he found seeds of a radical vision that might remake the place of Black people within the United States.”

....(snip)....

1833: Mohegan William Apess Jailed for Defense of Native Land

William Apess, Mohegan revolutionary and author, worked with the Wampanoag to defend their rights. They would lead what would be called the Mashpee Revolt in 1833 to address the wood poaching issue in their forest.

They posted signs declaring it their land. They also petitioned Harvard for the reclamation of their meetinghouse. They exposed Harvard’s missionary, the Reverand Phineas Fish, as exploiting the land he was allotted as part of his religious work and demanded he be removed from his post. ............(more)

https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-fourth-of-july/

[chia]

1. I didn't know this Zinn website existed.Now I do, so thank you!