On July 5, 1852, abolitionist Frederick Douglass stood before a crowd in Rochester, New York, and delivered what would become one of the most searing indictments of American hypocrisy ever spoken. In his legendary speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Douglass declared, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”His point was blisteringly clear: How could a nation celebrate freedom while millions were still enslaved?
That same question echoes through time—and it still demands an answer in 2025. The faces have changed, the vocabulary has shifted, and the party affiliations may differ, but the underlying philosophy remains eerily familiar. We are still living in an America where too many churches, too many politicians, and far too many self-proclaimed patriots participate in or passively enable systems of cruelty—then wrap their silence in the red, white, and blue.
The same religious voices who justified slavery with twisted scripture in the 1800s are now silent in the face of mass incarceration, state-sanctioned violence, and a culture of abandonment directed toward poor and non-white Americans. Today, instead of plantations, we have prisons. Instead of slave ships, we have deportation vans. Instead of chains, we have concrete walls, courtroom biases, and legislative neglect.
Let us not forget: Alcatraz Island may be closed as a prison, but the idea of Alcatraz never shut down. Its spirit moved into the underfunded public school systems, the overcrowded juvenile detention centers, and the privatized prison complexes. The steel bars of modern America are built on the same blueprints that confined my ancestors. Different party. Same philosophy.
And now, amid the political pageantry and campaign noise of a new election cycle, former President Donald J. Trump is once again flirting with policies that double down on exclusion, surveillance, and carceral control—especially of non-white communities. His unapologetic language, divisive posturing, and eerie nostalgia for “law and order” are not simply political slogans. They are modern extensions of an old philosophy: Preserve privilege, punish difference, and protect the powerful.
If you’re looking for evidence, you don’t have to dig too deep. Consider the weaponization of immigration policy. Consider the widening racial wealth gap. Consider the repeated gutting of voting rights protections. Consider what’s happening to Black and Brown youth in cities where militarized policing is normalized and school counselors are outnumbered by school resource officers. America may call itself a democracy, but its shadow still functions like a caste system.
This hypocrisy is not new. It is refined.
Even more disturbing is the complicity of many modern churches—particularly white evangelical churches—that preach about freedom in Christ while failing to lift a finger for those shackled by injustice. When Douglass called out the church in 1852, he warned that American Christianity had become “corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical.” One wonders if Douglass would say the same today to those pulpits that rage against drag queens but remain silent about police brutality, voter suppression, or the humanitarian crisis at the border.
Why do so many churches wave flags on Sunday morning but never raise one voice against injustice?
Why do so many politicians celebrate the Fourth of July as a symbol of liberty while they legislate fear, surveillance, and suppression?
Why does America cling to fireworks while ignoring fire alarms from the disenfranchised?
Because, again: Different party. Same philosophy.
This isn’t just about political parties or who sits in the Oval Office. It’s about the unspoken contract America has made with its past: a refusal to fully reckon with the ways race, class, and power intersect in policy and culture. Until that contract is torn up, rewritten, and reimagined, we’ll continue to cycle through moments like these—where the words of Douglass sound less like history and more like prophecy.
This Fourth of July, many Americans will fire up the grill, pop open a drink, and light up the skies. But for millions of others, the day brings a gut-punch reminder: that the promise of freedom remains unfulfilled. That justice is not blind but rather blinks in the face of the powerful. That our democracy still runs on selective memory.
Yet, there is hope. Because awareness is growing. Voices are rising. People are remembering the words of Douglass—not just to quote them, but to act on them. And the legacy of resistance—from Harriet Tubman to Angela Davis to Bryan Stevenson—is still being written by a new generation who refuses to celebrate freedom while their people are still in chains.
As we navigate the crossroads of history, let us ask ourselves with honesty and courage: What would Frederick Douglass say about the Fourth of July today?
He would likely say this:
“I told you then, and I tell you now—until freedom is for everyone, it is not freedom at all.”
By Edmond W. Davis
Historian | Educator | Journalist
