I was considering recommending Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech. I’d been thinking about the speech so much in the context of Juneteenth, and the President’s decision to schedule a speech in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a site of a racial massacre, on Juneteenth; a speech he subsequently pushed to the next day. Juneteenth puts center stage the history of slavery and Black people’s presence in the United States, from the colonial Era through today in a way that other holidays don’t. Frederick Douglass echoes in my mind because he pointed out that the Fourth of July sidesteps the history of slavery and the history of a whole array of American people.
The Best Books for Juneteenth recommended by Barbara Krauthamer
Commentary