Our Fourth of July, p.6

Our Fourth of July, p.6

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Lest we forget, even amid this loud din of praise and celebrating, we call attention to the above declaration of principles, laid down as the grounds upon which America was to build a new civilization.

It is not necessary to say that 154 years after this declaration was signed. We still fall far short of the objective for which those forefathers, including Crispus Attucks, waded through blood and gave their lives.

In this year 1930, while we go through the pretense of celebrating Fourth of July under the Declaration of Independence, millions of American citizens have more for which to fight and overcome than the colonists had in their revolt against British rule.

If you look at a map of the United States and you celebrate and listen to the bells of freedom ring this Fourth, you will observe that ten of these states deny the representatives of ten-millions of Negros to vote. A little further observation will show that in thirty-one states neither Negroes nor whites can follow any pursuit of happiness which may lead them jointly to the marriage alter and that in seventeen states children cannot be educated schoolhouses which the taxes of their own fathers help support.

In 1930 this government which began under the declaration guaranteeing to every man life and liberty, makes no serious move towards checking the lynching of human beings without the establishment of their guilt or innocence.

Perhaps it would be best for most of us to hush the wonder and noise of celebration and begin to wonder ways and means of making America safe under the Declaration of Independence."

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Baltimore Afro-American

1930-7-5