Still seeking a more perfect union, 400 years after US slavery
In his famous “4th of July” speech of 1852, the abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass provided a withering assessment of America’s failure to extend her “great principles of political freedom” and “natural justice” to black Americans before “drawing encouragement from ‘the Declaration of Independence,’ the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions.”
Such optimism combined with a barrage of protest was and has been the leitmotif for black American patriots throughout America’s history.
One of the most severe tests of this fragile balance occurred in 1883, following a group of Supreme Court decisions called the Civil Rights Cases, which held that the protections of the 14th Amendment did not extend to the actions of private individuals.
Even after the Civil Rights Cases, true believers in the ideals and potential of America like Douglass didn’t give up hope. Douglass was once again withering in his criticism, stating that as a class, black Americans had been “grievously wounded” by the decision, “wounded in the house of our friends, and this wound is too deep and too painful for ordinary measured speech,” but again expressed optimism for America’s foundations, stating that if the now-invalidated Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a bill for social equality “so is the Declaration of Independence … so is the Constitution of the United States.”
The black American experience, like the American experience, has journeyed on this winding path since the first African slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Through rebellions, labor reforms, dissident and antiwar movements, mass immigration, laissez-faire economics, the ever changing meaning of America is embodied in a patriotic tradition of self-reflection and change.
Call it a song if you will. A patriotic song with both lyrics of sadness and lyrics of love. And through this song and struggle, amazing things have happened. Yet a vision of an even more perfect society is always the central theme. In the words of James Baldwin:
Thus, when looking at Jamestown and reflecting on 400 years of the black American experience, we must look at the good and the bad and the continuing struggle for a better America.
Recently, I attended an important anniversary celebration of a black man I worked for, Chief Judge Carl Stewart of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. We were commemorating 25 years since he was appointed to the federal bench. Chief Judge Stewart is as American as they come. He is an Army veteran. All his sons were Eagle Scouts. His daughter has followed in his footsteps as a judge. And yet he grew up experiencing pernicious discrimination, attending racially segregated schools his whole life. There are millions of men and women like him in America of all races. Men and women who did not become cynical or lose the faith in their country or its institutions.
It is a journey of pain, but it is also one of celebration. Celebration that we have made it this far through such stormy weather. We have integrated society in a way unimaginable to revolutionaries like Douglass and confronted pain well into the 21st century that he would have well understood in the 19th. This pain and celebration make the black American experience quintessentially American.
From slavery to freedom to now, in this year that we celebrate (albeit painfully) the start of that journey, think of all the citizens that you know who have sung the American song with integrity and faith and never stopped believing in, and fighting for, something better.
“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
Adedayo Banwo is a lawyer and writer from Tampa. This first appeared in The Orlando Sentinel.