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7. What it is, good morning.
8. I am Angela Birdsong, your Conversation Piece host,
9. Coming from KPFK Studios with the real day-to-day happenings of urban living locally and worldwide,
10. giving you something new or unusual to talk about for stimulating conversation for you,
11. you know, on the bus, train, plane, wherever you may be at this moment in time.
12. Today on Conversation Peace, we're going to discuss the complicated relationship with Independence Day
13. and the 250th anniversary of America Cuckoo.
14. on the farce of the lie. We will hear KPFK host Sylvester Rivers and his son with two poignant
15. commentaries, followed by a powerful and still relevant speech, What to the Slave is the Fourth
16. of July. But first, Nana Jumpy, human rights attorney straight out of Washington, D.C.
17. Welcome to Conversation Peace.
18. We gotta tear, tear, tear those fascists down Together in the cities, streets, the countrysides
19. and towns We gotta tear, tear, tear those fascists down
20. We aren't waiting for it to appear Old George made that absolutely clear
21. From Palestine to the Congress Halls
22. Police Precincts to the prison walls
23. We gotta tear, tear, tear those fascists down
24. We gotta tear, tear, tear those fascists down
25. We gotta tear, tear, tear those fascists down
26. Together in the cities, streets, countries, sides and towns
27. We gotta tear, tear, tear those fascists down
28. That was a recent release single called Tear Those Fascists Down by another Adam Smith.
29. On June 30th, the Supreme Court struck down Trump's executive order, which sought to deny birthright citizenship based on the birthing parents' immigration status.
30. This decision means families no longer have to fear that a child born in the United States could be denied citizenship.
31. These dissenting justices' judicial opinions are a sobering reminder that the constitutional promise of birthright citizenship remains under attack.
32. The fear and harm caused by attacks on immigrant communities are real and Baji Black Alliance for Just Immigration work to protect belonging dignity and human rights for all continues Hear from Bajie Executive Director Nana Jumphy from the Supreme Court grounds for reflections on that decision
33. Greetings, everyone. This is me, Nana Jumphy,
34. Executive Director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration.
35. I am in D.C. at the Supreme Court after this decision
36. that was made on birthright citizenship.
37. check. There were as many immigrant rights folks here when the decision came out. We were here
38. with the policy team bright and early, making sure we got it when it landed. And yes, people are
39. happy and I understand that. We know how dangerous this court is, how violent some of its decisions
40. have been. And so it is very good that pregnant folks who are students, who are undocumented,
41. who are documented, et cetera, are able to breathe a little bit of a sign of a relief, right?
42. We know that people were inducing births to try to make it before the deadline.
43. We know that people who couldn't safely do that were trying to figure out what they were going to be able to do
44. to keep themselves and their babies safe.
45. And so we're glad for this decision.
46. On the other hand, we also understand that this should never have made it to the Supreme Court.
47. It is an obvious, it is a given that people who are born in this country are citizens of this country.
48. And it should have been a 9-0 decision.
49. And instead, this decision was what some are calling 6-3, what I'm calling 5-4.
50. You know, officially 6-3 in the sense that Justice Kavanaugh also agreed that the executive order signed by the president should be blocked.
51. but effectively a 5-4 in the way that he opens up the door to Congress and says,
52. hey, but you can change it.
53. Maybe you can't, but you can do something about it.
54. And so what is clear when we walk away from this is that there are four justices,
55. four justices on the highest court of the land who don't think it's an obvious
56. that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship
57. and thinks that that somehow can be curtailed in ways that we know are dangerous.
58. And so important for us to keep fighting, to not get complacent, to understand that the empire strikes back, to, you know, pay attention to what will be happening with executive orders coming up.
59. But today we can say that we can breathe a sigh of relief for a moment while we get ready to continue to fight.
60. Sylvester Rivers and Joam Kijana Rivers, father and son respectively, deliver two separate insightful commentaries.
61. As we wrap up the founding of the United States, the question comes up, what is it to be American?
62. Joam Kijana Rivers has more.
63. The box we are in as Americans is more than just one group of people.
64. We are numerous groups of people with very different ideologies, different values, different political views, languages, and varying cultures.
65. But what we have in common is that we all live together here in this nation.
66. To become American, one must give up their culture and start speaking American English.
67. This is true for all people, even European Americans.
68. They stop speaking German, Turkish, Italian, or Spanish.
69. The difference for Europeans is that they are then accepted and viewed as Americans.
70. People have the option of being fully accepted if they look the part.
71. What the powers that be, what a historically and systematically racist government wants,
72. is for Americans to look like white Americans.
73. When people of color choose to identify as American, we are challenged.
74. We have not and often still are not viewed as Americans even if we been here for so many generations that we don have any other country to identify with
75. Our country has a history of telling people who or what they are, and historically, these colonizers would take a group of people and decide for them.
76. You're African American, or you're Negro, or you're Native American.
77. And politically, our country has used this to deny people rights and access to different things.
78. They were just making it up for their own benefit the whole time.
79. So we are, in a way, buying into their beliefs by not identifying as what we are
80. and believing what we're told instead of telling the world who we are.
81. I understand not wanting to identify with all the treachery that the nation is still up to.
82. However, I don't culturally identify with anyone else as closely as I do with other Americans.
83. Black Americans and Latino Americans mostly, those are my people, as well as other Americans of color and even many white Americans.
84. Non-white people are understandably deterred from being part of the group.
85. We have identity issues and we look for cultures in our ancestral past to connect to.
86. For black Americans, that is Africa.
87. Our school systems are mandated to teach our history correctly.
88. However, depending on your teacher, it's often not done.
89. So our people lose interest.
90. We don't see ourselves in these narratives.
91. We see our history being omitted.
92. We clearly aren't welcome here, so we must not be Americans.
93. So we try not to participate with anything Eurocentric.
94. When I leave the country and I speak in any other part of the world,
95. as soon as people hear my accent, they say, oh, you're American. And what I've realized is that
96. when people see me being a person clearly of African ancestry and an American accent,
97. who they see is not the same as the definition that white Americans and the colonizers promote.
98. I am seen as the other type of American, the ones that created jazz, blues, and hip-hop,
99. the ones that are Olympic champions holding the black fist in Hitler's face.
100. They see world-class athletes, basketball players, and they see powerful people being killed by the police fighting for civil rights in their own country.
101. Racial tension is high because when we disagree, we still have to share the same food, share the same water, the same air.
102. Because we live in such close proximity, we do influence each other.
103. So culturally, even if our values are opposite, we still have things in common just based on region.
104. If the majority of the citizens of the United States of America today are not colonizers or people who want to embrace whiteness and white supremacy, then collectively we could change what the term means.
105. We have to redefine what it means to be American, and we can't define what being American means for us if we don't identify as being American at all.
106. If 1% of this country is wealthy white conservative colonizers, and they're the only people who identify and define what American is, then they have full say in what that means.
107. while the rest of us are just confused trying to make up a culture that we can identify with.
108. We can have our ancient African cultural roots and our current American culture too.
109. We don't want to identify with all the white Americans that participate in white superiority and world domination.
110. We are not patriotic because we don feel proud of war profiteering or disrupting peace in other countries The fact is we are Americans What makes us American is that we are from the United States We may not be patriotic We are Americans fighting for freedom within our borders
111. and we have a lot to be proud of. You said something that resonated with me. You said that
112. you have to identify with what empowers you. And Black Americans have not been empowered by
113. the term American. A commentary on the celebration of the 4th of July by Sylvester Rivers. July 4th,
114. a national holiday loved and celebrated by many. I, on the other hand, call this day a day of mourning,
115. not a day of celebration. 1776 is the so-called day of American independence, but it was not for
116. another 89 years before black people were given their so-called independence. 1776 was independence
117. for white males only. So why people of color celebrate this holiday is a mystery to me.
118. Firecrackers and fireworks to mimic the war of 1812 that American settlers fought against the
119. British. One observer of the battle was Francis Scott Key. He wrote the Star-Spangled Banner while
120. witnessing some of the fighting and referenced the British bombs
121. by saying they were bursting in air, bombs bursting in air.
122. Part of that anthem says,
123. No refuge could save the heralding and slave
124. from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.
125. Key is saying that any slave or worker should see his death or grave
126. if they join sides with the British army.
127. You see, the British had offered freedom
128. for those enslaved people who would fight on their side.
129. And yes, many did.
130. The British were about to abolish slavery in 1812.
131. And by 1776, the British had abolished slavery.
132. Not for any moral reason,
133. but because there were too many dark-skinned people
134. on the islands that they occupied
135. and that those people were continuously revolting.
136. And now with captured Africans in the majority,
137. it made it very dangerous for the minority white population.
138. Abolishing slavery wouldn't work for the new American settlers, however,
139. because they needed a source of free labor or enslaved people to help colonize the new frontier.
140. The British abolishing slavery would be problematic to their quest
141. to sustain their criminal settler colonial empire using enslaved Africans.
142. Not only did the European settlers want to keep slavery intact,
143. but they also wanted to participate in the Atlantic slave trade
144. because the British monarchy had a monopoly on the ability to buy, sell, trade human cargo.
145. So all this celebration, patriotism, and flag worshipping is a part of the 4th of July celebration.
146. Meanwhile, this American flag is the symbol for American independence, patriotism, and MAGA.
147. But I'm wondering, how is the American flag different than that of the Nazi swastika?
148. They both symbolize the notion of white supremacy.
149. Like Hitler, the American Founding Fathers were white nationalists,
150. committing genocide against a whole group of people.
151. Not only did Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and all of those Founding Fathers
152. try to exterminate all the indigenous people on the North American continent,
153. they brutally captured, tortured, bought, sold many Africans from the continent
154. and forced them to work for all of these people.
155. this July 4th commemorating 1776
156. is a day of mourning
157. because the brutality of enslavement
158. of the whole group of people
159. continued after 1776
160. because the
161. settlers did not want to end slavery.
162. They needed labor to continue with their quest to colonize North America.
163. The brutality continues even after the 13th Amendment of the Constitution.
164. Fast forward to 2016.
165. NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick takes a knee
166. to protest against the continued brutality of people of color.
167. The question then should not be why Kaepernick took a knee during the anthem,
168. but why would anyone stand?
169. The flag is a symbol of the policies and actions taken by the colonizers.
170. As Frederick Douglass said back in the 1800s, what does the 4th of July mean to the black man?
171. Today in 2023, I say, what does the 4th of July mean to the black man?
172. Or I could say, what does the 4th of July mean to the black man?
173. Because yes, you lied.
174. This white supremacist nation talking about freedom?
175. what does the 4th of July mean to me?
176. So on this day, we mourn, not celebrate.
177. Why would I stand?
178. I'd rather take a knee.
179. Hear more from Sylvester Rivers on KPFK Morning Mix,
180. cut to The Chase, Fridays at 8 a.m.
181. I am Angela Birdsong with more than a Sparrow Productions
182. on KPFK at 90.7 FM Los Angeles,
183. 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, 93.7 FM San Diego, and 99.5 FM Ridgecrest, China Lake.
184. And heard worldwide anytime online and archived at kpfk.org.
185. People on me for life, just play me sick
186. You can't change me, cause I'm people on me for life
187. Where you from fool?
188. No I wasn't born in Ghana but Africa's my mama
189. And I did not end up here from bad karma
190. Off of b-ball, selling mad crack or rapping
191. Peter Tosh tried to tell us what happened
192. He was saying if you black then you African
193. So they had to kill him and make him a villain
194. Cause he was teaching the children, I feel him
195. Ben was trying to drop us a real gem
196. That's why we bucking holes in the ceiling
197. When we hearing I'm an African, I'm an African
198. And I know what's happening
199. I'm an African
200. I'm an African
201. And I know what's happening
202. You an African
203. You an African
204. Do you know what's happening?
205. I'm an African
206. I'm an African
207. And I know what's happening
208. A-F-R-I-C-A
209. Puerto Rico, Haiti, and J.A.
210. New York and Cali, F-L-A
211. No, it ain't about where you stay
212. It's about the motherland
213. A-F-R-I-C-A
214. Puerto Rico, Haiti, and J.A.
215. New York and Cali, F.L.A.
216. Yo, it ain't about where you stay, it's about the motherland.
217. It's that tank top flip-flop, naughty dreadlock, up the cop hip-hop.
218. Make your head bop, bounce to this socialist movement.
219. My environment made me the guy that I am.
220. Uncle Sam came and got me and the rest of my fam.
221. Try to infiltrate and murder off the best of my clan.
222. I'm not American, punk, Democrat, or Republican, remember that.
223. Most of the cast we know be hustling.
224. My mama worked all her life and still struggling.
225. I blame it on the government and say it on the radio
226. And if you don't already know
227. All these Uncle Tom ass kisses and got to go
228. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in either 1817 or 1818
229. on Maryland's eastern shore.
230. His mother and maternal grandparents were also enslaved After escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1838 Frederick Douglass became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York
231. and gained fame for his oratory and incisive anti-slavery writings, becoming one of the
232. leading abolitionist voices in the 19th century. Douglass wrote three autobiographies describing
233. his experiences as an enslaved person. On July 5th, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address
234. at an Independence Day celebration and asked, what to the slave is the 4th of July? His speech,
235. given at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was held at
236. Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. Today on Conversation Peace, you will hear the keynote
237. address read by actor, director, writer, and activist, Ossie Davis, who was married to Ruby D
238. until his death. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July.
239. It is the birthday of your national independence and of your political freedom.
240. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God.
241. It carries your minds back to the day and to the act of your great deliverance, and
242. to the signs and to the wonders associated with that act and that day.
243. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life and
244. reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old.
245. I am glad, fellow citizens, that your nation is so young.
246. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of
247. a nation.
248. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men.
249. But nations number their years by thousands.
250. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career,
251. still lingering in the period of childhood.
252. I repeat, I am glad this is so.
253. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon.
254. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times.
255. But his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young,
256. and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence.
257. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice, and of truth will yet give direction to her destiny.
258. Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder and the reformer's brow heavier.
259. Its future might be shrouded in gloom and the hope of its profits go out in sorrow.
260. There is consolation in the thought that America is young Great streams are not easily turned from channels worn deep in the course of ages
261. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty and inundate the land,
262. refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties.
263. They may also rise in wrath and fury and bear away on their angry waves the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship.
264. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel and flow on as serenely as ever.
265. But while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up and leave nothing behind but the withered branch and the unsightly rock to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind the sad tale of departed glory.
266. As with rivers, so with nations.
267. Fellow citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic.
268. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men.
269. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age.
270. It does not often happen to a nation to raise at one time such a number of truly great men.
271. the point from which I am compelled to view them
272. is not certainly the most favorable.
273. And yet, I cannot contemplate their great deeds
274. with less than admiration.
275. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes,
276. and for the good they did
277. and the principles they contended for,
278. I will unite with you to honor their memory.
279. They loved their country
280. better than their own private interests.
281. And though this is not the highest form of human excellence,
282. all will concede that it is a rare virtue
283. and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect.
284. He who will intelligently lay down his life for his country
285. is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise.
286. Your fathers stake their lives, their fortunes,
287. and their sacred honor on the cause of their country.
288. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interest.
289. They were peace men, but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage.
290. They were quiet men, but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression.
291. They showed forbearance, but they knew its limits.
292. They believed in order, but not in the order of tyranny.
293. With them, nothing was settled that was not right.
294. With them, justice, liberty, and humanity were final, not slavery and oppression.
295. You may well cherish the memory of such men.
296. They were great in their day and generation.
297. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.
298. While the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation echoed back by all the hills valleys and mountains of a vast continent bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interest a nation jubilee Fellow citizens pardon me Allow me to ask why am I called upon to speak
299. here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the
300. great principles of political freedom and of national justice
301. embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us?
302. And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar
303. and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude
304. for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
305. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours
306. That an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions
307. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful
308. For who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him
309. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude
310. That would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits
311. Who so stolid and selfish
312. That would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee
313. When the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs
314. I am not that man
315. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as in heart.
316. But such is not the state of the case.
317. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us.
318. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary.
319. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us.
320. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common.
321. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence
322. bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me.
323. the sunlight that brought light and healing to you
324. has brought stripes and death to me
325. this 4th of July is yours
326. not mine
327. you may rejoice
328. I must mourn
329. to drag a man in fetters
330. into the grand illuminated temple of liberty
331. and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems
332. were inhuman, mockery, and sacrilegious irony.
333. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me by asking me to speak today?
334. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct.
335. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the examples
336. of a nation whose crimes towering up to heaven
337. were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty,
338. burying that nation in irrevocable ruin.
339. I can today take up the plaintive lament
340. of appealed and woe-smitten people.
341. By the...
342. of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps
343. upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive required
344. of us a song and they that wasted us required of us mirth saying sing us one
345. of the songs of Zion how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land if I
346. forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee,
347. let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.
348. Fellow citizens, above your national tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions
349. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday,
350. are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them.
351. If I do forget,
352. if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day,
353. may my right hand forget her cunning and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.
354. to forget them
355. to pass lightly over their wrongs
356. and to chime in with the popular theme
357. would be treason most scandalous and shocking
358. and would make me a reproach before God and the world
359. my subject then fellow citizens
360. is American slavery.
361. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics
362. from the slave's point of view.
363. Standing there, identified with the American bondman,
364. making his wrongs mine,
365. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul
366. that the character and conduct of this nation
367. never looked blacker to me than on the 4th of July.
368. Whether returned to the declarations of the past
369. or to the professions of the present,
370. the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.
371. America is false to the past,
372. false to the present,
373. and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
374. standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion,
375. I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged,
376. in the name of liberty, which is fettered,
377. in the name of the Constitution and the Bible,
378. which are disregarded and trampled upon,
379. dare to call in question and to denounce
380. with all the emphasis I can command
381. everything that serves to perpetuate slavery,
382. the great sin and shame of America.
383. I will not equivocate.
384. I will not excuse.
385. I will use the severest language I can command And yet not one word shall escape me that any man whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice or who is not at heart a slaveholder
386. shall not confess to be right and just.
387. But I fancy I hear someone of my audience say,
388. it is just in this circumstance
389. that you and your brother abolitionists
390. fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind.
391. Would you argue more and denounce less?
392. Would you persuade more and rebuke less?
393. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed.
394. But I submit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued.
395. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue?
396. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light?
397. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man?
398. That point is conceded already.
399. Nobody doubts it.
400. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws of their government.
401. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave.
402. There are 72 crimes in the state of Virginia which, if committed by a black man,
403. no matter how ignorant he be, subject him to the punishment of death,
404. while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment.
405. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being?
406. The manhood of the slave is conceded.
407. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments
408. forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write.
409. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field,
410. then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave.
411. When the dogs in your street, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills,
412. when the fish of the sea and the reptiles that crawl
413. shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute,
414. then will I argue with you that the slave is a man.
415. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race.
416. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting, and reaping,
417. using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships,
418. working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold,
419. that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering,
420. acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries,
421. having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets,
422. authors, editors, artists, and teachers,
423. that while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises
424. common to other men, digging gold in California,
425. capturing the whale in the Pacific,
426. feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside,
427. living, moving, acting, thinking, planning,
428. living in families as husbands, wives, and children,
429. and above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God
430. and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave,
431. we are called upon to prove that we are men Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty that he is the rightful owner of his own body
432. You have already declared it.
433. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery?
434. Is that a question for Republicans?
435. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation
436. as a matter beset with great difficulty
437. involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice,
438. hard to be understood?
439. How should I look today, in the presence of Americans,
440. dividing and subdividing a discourse
441. to show that men have a natural right to freedom,
442. speaking of it relatively and positively,
443. negatively and affirmatively?
444. To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding.
445. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
446. What to the American slave is your 4th of July?
447. I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days in the year
448. the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
449. To him, your celebration is a sham.
450. Your boasted liberty an unholy license.
451. Your national greatness swelling vanity.
452. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless.
453. Your denunciation of tyrants' brass-fronted impudence.
454. Your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery.
455. Your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy.
456. A thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
457. there is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than other
458. people of the united states at this very hour go where you may search where you will roam through
459. all the monarchies and despotism of the old world travel through south america search out every
460. abuse and when you have found the last lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of
461. this nation, and you will say with me that for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy,
462. America reigns without a rival.
463. Take the American slave trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous
464. just now.
465. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now.
466. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger.
467. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions.
468. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one half of this confederacy.
469. And millions are pocketed every year by dealers in this horrid traffic.
470. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth.
471. It is called, in contradistinction to the foreign slave trade, the internal slave trade.
472. It is probably called so too in order to avert from it the horror with which the foreign slave trade is contemplated That trade has long since been denounced by this government as piracy It has been denounced with
473. burning words from the high places of the nation as an excruciating crime.
474. Crippled traffic.
475. To arrest it, to put an end to it,
476. this nation keeps a squadron at immense cost on the coast of Africa.
477. Everywhere in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave trade
478. as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man.
479. the duty to extirpate and destroy it
480. is admitted even by our doctors of divinity.
481. In order to put an end to it,
482. some of these last have consented
483. that their colored brethren, nominally free,
484. should leave this country
485. and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa.
486. It is, however, a notable fact
487. that while so much execration is poured out by Americans,
488. Upon all those engaged in the foreign slave trade,
489. the men engaged in the slave trade between the states
490. pass without condemnation,
491. and their business is deemed honorable.
492. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave trade,
493. the American slave trade,
494. sustained by American politics and American religion.
495. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market.
496. You know what is a swine drover? I will show you a man drover.
497. They inhabit all our southern states.
498. They perambulate the country and crowd the highways of the nation with droves of human stock.
499. You will see one of these human flesh jobbers, armed with pistol, whip, and bowie knife,
500. driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children
501. from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans.
502. These wretched people are to be sold singly or in lots
503. to suit the purchases.
504. They are food for the cotton field and the deadly sugar mill.
505. Mark the sad procession as it moves wearily along
506. and the inhuman wretch who drives them.
507. Hear his savage yells and his blood-curdling oaths
508. as he hurries on his affrighted captives.
509. There, see the old man with locks thinned and gray.
510. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother
511. whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun,
512. her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms.
513. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn.
514. The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength.
515. Suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle.
516. The fetters clank and the chain rattles simultaneously.
517. Your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul.
518. The crack you heard was from the sound of the slave whip.
519. The scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe.
520. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains.
521. That gash on her shoulder
522. older, tells her to move on.
523. Follow this drove to New Orleans.
524. Attend the auction.
525. See the men examined like horses.
526. See the form of the women, rudely and brutally exposed
527. to the shocking gaze of American slave buyers.
528. See this drove sold and separated forever.
529. and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude.
530. Tell me, citizens, where under the sun
531. you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking?
532. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave trade
533. as it exists at this moment in the ruling part of the United States.
534. I was born amid such sights and scenes.
535. To me, the American slave trade is a terrible reality.
536. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors.
537. I lived on Philpott Street, Fells Point, Baltimore,
538. and have watched from the wharves the slave ships in the basin,
539. anchored from the shore with their cargoes of human flesh,
540. waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake.
541. There was at that time a grand slave mart
542. kept at the head of Pratt Street by Austin Wolfo.
543. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland,
544. announcing their arrival through the papers
545. and on flaming handbills headed,
546. Cash for Negroes!
547. These men were generally well-dressed men
548. and very captivating in their manners,
549. ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble.
550. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card,
551. and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother
552. by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.
553. The flesh mongers gather up their victims by the dozens
554. and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore.
555. When a sufficient number has been collected here,
556. a ship is chartered for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile or to New Orleans.
557. From the slave prison to the ship,
558. they are usually driven in the darkness of night for since the anti-slavery agitation a certain
559. caution is observed in the deep still darkness of midnight I have been often aroused by the
560. dead heavy footsteps and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door the anguish
561. of my boyish heart was intense, and I was often consoled when speaking to my mistress in the
562. morning to hear her say that the custom was very wicked, that she hated to hear the rattle of the
563. chains and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.
564. Fellow citizens this murderous traffic is today an active operation in this boasted republic
565. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South.
566. I see the bleeding footsteps.
567. I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity on the way to the slave markets where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder.
568. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken to gratify the lust, caprice, and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men.
569. My soul sickens at the sight.
570. Is this the land your fathers loved, the freedom which they toiled to win?
571. Is this the earth whereon they moved?
572. Are these the graves they slumber in?
573. Americans, your Republican politics,
574. not less than your Republican religion,
575. are flagrantly inconsistent.
576. You boast of your love of liberty,
577. your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity,
578. while the whole political power of the nation
579. as embodied in the two great political parties
580. is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate
581. the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen.
582. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned head tyrants of Russia and Austria
583. and pride yourselves on your democratic institutions
584. while you yourselves consent to be mere tools
585. and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina.
586. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad,
587. honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations,
588. cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them,
589. and pour out your money to them like water.
590. But the fugitive from your own land,
591. you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill.
592. You glory in your refinement and your universal education,
593. yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful
594. as ever stained the character of a nation.
595. A system begun in avarice, supported in pride
596. and perpetuated in cruelty.
597. you shed tears over fallen hungary and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets
598. statesmen and orators till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause
599. against the oppressor but in regards to the 10 000 wrongs of the american slave you would enforce
600. the strictest silence and hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the
601. subject of public discourse. You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France
602. or for Ireland, but a cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of
603. America You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor yet you sustain a system which in its very essence casts a stigma upon labor You can bear your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a three tax on tea
604. and yet wring the last harder and farthing from the grasp of the black laborer of your country.
605. You profess to believe that of one blood God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth
606. and hath commanded all men everywhere to love one another,
607. yet you notoriously hate and glory in your hatred
608. all men whose skins are not colored like your own.
609. You declare before the world
610. and are understood by the world to declare
611. that you hold these truths to be self-evident,
612. that all men are created equal
613. and are endowed by their creator
614. with certain unalienable rights
615. and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
616. and yet you hold securely in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson,
617. is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose
618. a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.
619. fellow citizens
620. I will not enlarge further
621. on your national inconsistencies
622. the existence of slavery in this country
623. brands your republicanism as a sham
624. your humanity as a base pretense
625. and your Christianity
626. a lie
627. It destroys your moral power abroad
628. It corrupts your politicians at home
629. It saps the foundation of religion
630. It makes your name a hissing and a byword to a mocking earth
631. It is the antagonistic force in your government
632. The only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your union
633. It fetters your progress
634. It is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education.
635. It fosters pride.
636. It breeds insolence.
637. It promotes vice.
638. It shelters crime.
639. It is a curse to the earth that supports it.
640. And yet, you cling to it as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes.
641. Oh, be warned, be warned
642. A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation's bosom
643. The venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic
644. For the love of God, tear away and fling from you the hideous monster
645. and let the weight of 20 millions crush and destroy it forever.
646. What to the Slave is the 4th of July speaks volumes to a familiar reflection of the United States of America
647. since and before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
648. Profit over people every day, all day.
649. In Los Angeles, the ULA measure, also known as the mansion tax,
650. is under attack by billionaires and developers who want tax cuts on properties valued at and above million along with having the support of local and state politicians who do not care about the power of
651. the people, let alone homeless prevention, which is what this mansion tax is for. And it's working.
652. The mansion tax is working for preventing homelessness, keeping people housed, having
653. eviction defense, rental assistance, and building affordable permanent housing. But politicians
654. don't care about the power of the people, but they do care about wealthy backers and backdoor deals.
655. What to the Slave is the 4th of July identifies the generations of Christians who claim to love
656. God, but obviously hate and ignore, Yeshua, who strongly suggests to do unto others as you will
657. want them to do unto you. This is indeed 250 years of lies, alibis, narcissistic hate, evil, and not
658. love of others outside of yourself. No wonder why we breathe the likes of a grand wizard,
659. Charlie Kirk. Welcome to America, Conversation Peace. Be safe out there today, Conversation
660. Peace family. Thank you to our KPFK audio engineer, Adam Rice for editing the show,
661. and Michael Washington of M. Wash So for the opening and closing theme song. And always you,
662. our listening audience. If you missed any part of my show today, or you simply want to revisit,
663. review, replay today's conversation piece
664. or any of my previous shows.
665. They are available for 60 days after the air date
666. on our website at kpfk.org.
667. To reach me on social media,
668. go to mtasproductions.com.
669. Follow KPFK on all social media platforms
670. as you listen to us worldwide anytime on kpfk.org.
671. I'm Angela Birdsong. Once again, thank you for allowing me to share this special experience of conversation peace with you.
672. Remember to be on guard, stand firm in the faith, be brave, be courageous and let all that you do be done with love.
673. Next Freedom Now.
674. Thank you.
675. 7 FM, Los Angeles, and online at kpfk.org.
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