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Whose Independence Day?
Understanding the difference between history and memory
As we celebrate this July 4th — 245 years of independence from our former colonial overlords — it would do us well to remember a few things.
These things we should remember not to dampen the enthusiasm with which we celebrate our nation or the people in it. Far be it from me to throw a wet towel over the annual incendiary marriage of American self-love and Chinese manufacturing that occurs once the skies darken on this day each year.
It’s just that independence is an important concept, too complex to be reduced to a mere breaking away from the British monarchy. After all, for Black folks in the colonies, their most immediate oppression was not meted out by King George. Taxes on tea were not among their primary concerns.
For Africans in America, their subjugation typically came at the hands of other colonists, including the very patriots who would go on to fight for the revolution in the name of liberty. The same men who became weepy at the words of the Declaration that “All men are created equal” typically acted in contravention of that maxim every day by the lives they led. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote them, held in bondage hundreds of people at the time he put quill to parchment, suggesting that the 18th-century version of “all lives matter” was no more sincere than today’s.
As we celebrate our nation’s independence, let us remember that formal freedom would be delayed another century for millions of Black folks. And any truly substantive liberty would be denied to their descendants for yet another. Fifty-five years hence it is still far more elusive than the promises would suggest.
Let us recall that of the 9000 Black troops (5000 in combat units) who fought for independence from the Crown, few if any received war pensions or land, and of those who were enslaved, only 1 in 5 received even their freedom as a reward.
This, in contrast to whites who fought. My five-times great-grandfather, for instance — Ephraim McLean — served bravely in the war, sustaining an injury at the Battle of King’s Mountain, which was one of the revolution’s critical campaigns. For his service, he would be given over 12,000 acres of land in North Carolina and…
