Three potent reminders that "none of us are free, 'til all of us are free"
From Derrick Johnson, President of the NAACP - July 5, 2022
Yesterday, America celebrated her birthday, known as Independence Day. But to many Black and brown people in this country today, we feel anything but free.
What is Independence Day to a Black man denied his right to vote? What is Independence Day to a woman denied the right to her own body? What is Independence Day to the child shot dead by police? What is Independence Day to a poor household with no access to wealth but a mountain of debt? What is Independence Day to a country with a democracy in flames and limited freedoms for a limited few?
It’s tough for us to celebrate the Fourth of July because our Fourth of July is still one of oppression. We’re not free to vote, breathe, or choose. Our rights are being slashed.
If our nation managed to free itself from the British, surely we can free the poor from their student debt, Black families from voter suppression, and every woman from draconian rulings.
Democracy is on the ballot this November. Your rights and freedoms cannot afford to sit this one out. It’s not just about the person in the White House. It’s about those on the Supreme Court, those running our cities, and those occupying our state houses.
George, we are not free - not even close. But with the power of our vote, we can strike down the forces that hold us back.
From the North Carolina Association of Educators - July 4, 2022
In honor of the Independence Day Holiday, we're making
our Ed Insight newsletter available to all. Here's to real freedom and justice
for all, including:
The freedom to learn our
true history and to have the experiences, achievements, culture, and trials of
all people fully included at all levels of education;
The freedom to make
decisions over our own bodies;
The freedom to breathe clean
air, access clean water, and receive the food, shelter, and health care
necessary for all to live and thrive;
The freedom to engage in
democratic practices committed to the liberty of all rather than the
concentrated wealth and power of a corrupt few.
We are all in this TOGETHER!
Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
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