Let’s start this 4th of July with a song! Click the link below for Reina del Cid’s powerful adaptation of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”
“Land of dystopia/
Religious myopia.”
Those of you who are in NYC and have no plans in the very near future can join me at this march in Brooklyn at 5 PM today.
Not in New York City or otherwise not available? Don’t worry! I have a week’s worth of activism options for folks in NYC and across the nation in my latest Indivisible Activate NYC newsletter.
READ THE NEWSLETTER AND GET ACTIVATED!
On the educational front, there’s no time like the present to read (or re-read) the famous 4th of July speech by statesman/orator/abolitionist Frederick Douglass. If you’re more of a listener than a reader, you’re in luck, because you can hear James Earl Jones read it.
JAMES EARL JONES READS THE DOUGLASS SPEECH.
Whenever I re-read this speech myself, one element of it always hits me differently than the last time, depending on current events. Today it is this passage:
There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment.
How little has changed, and how hard we must fight! But don’t despair. As Coretta Scott King said, “Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.” Let’s win.