Black Americans Seek Freedom On July 4

By Olachi Ihekwaba, Miami Times Contributor

Jun 29, 2021

For Black Americans, Independence Day is a challenging holiday to observe.

Across the country, the annual celebration of nationhood is meant to draw excitement. We’re celebrating America, land of the free and home of the brave. It’s supposed to be fun. Right?

The response to that question will differ for everyone, especially those from marginalized communities.

Prior to the Civil War, white Americans marked the Fourth of July with feasts, parades and alcohol. As time evolved, the weeks preceding the day brought forth the promise of backyard barbecues, family gatherings, fireworks and community pool parties. It was and still is – to most white people – a day that brings everyone together to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and the freedom it granted.

But for Black Americans, who continue to reckon with our country’s history and the racism that taints it, the contradictory nature of U.S. independence is an ongoing topic of contention.

Taking a knee or remaining seated during the national anthem is the new standing. Protest chants – think “No justice, no peace!” – are more familiar to younger generations of the Black community than the Pledge of Allegiance. Raised fists, a global symbol of Black power and solidarity with oppressed people, mean more to Black children than hands on hearts during the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

These trends speak to the trajectory of Black patriotism, despite imagery of “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Times have changed, because they haven’t changed enough. Old and new instances of police brutality and racial injustice have propelled individuals to action.

America celebrates its freedom, but the Black community continues to ask – whose freedom are we really celebrating?

Woke in America

With President Joe Biden’s recent signing of the Juneteenth bill – officially making June 19 a federal holiday – many within the Black community are choosing to use this year’s Independence Day as a time to reflect upon and reckon with the duality of honoring America while wanting better for and from her.

Jasmine Doyle (R) and a fellow demonstrator marching through downtown Miami during a protest to demand justice for Breonna Taylor.

(Courtesy of Jasmine Doyle via Juan David Perez)

For 17-year-old Jasmine Doyle, a Miami native and incoming student at New College of Florida, the meaning behind Independence Day has drastically changed.

“For me, Fourth of July used to look like going to Old Navy to buy red, white and blue attire. Or going out to my neighborhood park because that’s where fireworks usually happened. Or grilling with my family and just being together,” she said. “But as I got older and took history classes in school, my feelings toward Fourth of July changed. I, personally, no longer celebrate it.”

Eighteen-year-old Kymora Daley, a graduate of MAST Academy in Key Biscayne, also credits academic curricula – specifically, her Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) class – for helping her realize that the humanity of Blackness was glaringly absent from the story of U.S. independence.

“It was during my junior year of high school, while taking APUSH, that I started becoming conscious of racial politics in America,” she said. “Carlos Couzo was a great history teacher. He was never biased and never gave his opinion. Sometimes, you couldn’t really trust history, but you could trust him. He gave it to us straight.”

For students like Doyle and Daley, whose classwork contributed to their politicization, the months of protests over unlawful police killings sparked by the murder of George Floyd is not the only reason why America’s Independence Day has little value to them.

“My father has been racially targeted,” Doyle said. “So when I see other Black people going through similar experiences, I get scared. Even if it’s not happening to me directly, there’s a possibility that it could one day.”

Daley’s thoughts reflect similar sentiments.

“There are a million reasons why Black people don’t feel safe in this country,” she said. “You could be standing outside your house, trying to get inside and end up having the police called on you because a neighbor thought that wasn’t your home. And as a Black woman, there’s an added element of fear because not only are you targeted in this country (for your skin color), you’re sexualized from the day you’re born.”

For teenagers in the Black community, the path to becoming woke is complicated. But the ability to balance social consciousness with other interests and issues is where it truly gets difficult. Just existing poses a significant challenge to those who are not white and understand that their freedom is conditional, not a guarantee.

“The issues that harm Black people – and our feelings that form in response to them – have existed for so long,” said Doyle. “These are just some of the many reasons why Black people in this country are still not free.”

One nation, two realities

The difference between the idealized promise of American independence and the realities of life for members of the Black community has also been made evident to immigrants of color across the U.S.

Neyissa Desir is a Haitian immigrant, community advocate and outreach paralegal at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Miami. She is committed to fighting for racial justice in the South and beyond while working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy.

As someone who did not learn of Independence Day until she was 9 and had immigrated to America, Desir believes this country cannot acknowledge the Fourth of July without addressing the nuances of the holiday.

“It’s a celebration of freedom for this country but it’s not a celebration of freedom for everyone,” she said. “The Black community is still fighting for freedom. We have new systems in place that continue to harmfully impact a lot of us … Our fight is far from over.”

Nephtalie Jacques, an outreach paralegal assigned to the prison condition team in SPLC’s Human Justice Reform Program, agrees that there’s a long road ahead. She chooses to remain hopeful, however, by reflecting on the way her work uniquely positions her and other civil rights activists to advocate for those targeted by anti-Black systems.

“Class actions take a long time, which means you sit with people’s names and stories for a long time,” she said. “But on the days I feel like giving up, I don’t, because I know who I’m fighting for and who I’m fighting with.”

For Black Americans whose scope of work is in close proximity to harmful systems that disproportionately affect their communities, reckoning with holidays like Independence Day is that much more challenging.

“Being a prosecutor brings about my own duality with being a Black male,” said Leonard Thompson, an assistant state attorney at the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office. “We talk about it all the time. It’s a matter of understanding how we can cheer on our own people – how we can root for our own – and then also prosecute our own. It is such a difficult conversation.”

The death of Floyd last May made it hard for Thompson to reconcile what he does with who he is.

“When George Floyd died, it tore at me. I could not prosecute,” he said. “I was happy that there was a pandemic because I couldn’t come to court and deal with seeing Black men in the box. I think that would have been too much for me at the time.”

The power of protest

Katherine Passley – deputy director of Beyond The Bars, a grassroots organization that builds the power of people who are directly impacted by the carceral system in Miami – wants to ensure that incarcerated members of the Black community get the best outcome for their cases and the support they need to navigate the conditions of the prison system.

“Jails and prisons are industries. They have captive markets, contracts, financial gains and ecosystems that profit off their predatory practices,” Passley said. “So when we talk about injustices within the Black community, jails and prisons apply. This makes me wonder what all these holidays, both Independence Day and Juneteenth, mean to the modern slave beyond a celebratory win of symbolic freedom. Our position should be that we never forget the injustices that, to this day, we are still victims of.”

Like Passley, Daley and other teenagers across Miami invite the change that legislation may bring, but don’t believe it is enough or effective in and of itself.

“I don’t believe Juneteenth should have been made a federal holiday,” Daley said. “To me, it’s the government cleaning the exterior without solving the interior. You’re fixing what is on the surface but not addressing all the issues the Black community struggles with internally.”

As was the case with many others who felt both happy with and conflicted by the announcement that Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, Thompson pondered a specific approach to advocating for the Black community.

“I’ve always heard that, for political movement, you need agitation and negotiation,” he said.

Passley is in agreement with that statement.

“We need to be in their faces,” she said. “There does need to be that agitation. We need to advocate for ourselves and have those in positions of power make the change we want and need.”

Desir, who favors a preventive approach, nonetheless recognizes there is something to be said about the power of digital protesting.

“This past summer we saw people using social media to spread information, which was amazing. It may seem minor and somewhat ineffective, but posting something that acts as a resource to someone else is advocacy,” she said. “Someone might see a post and learn something new. I think sharing credible information on social media is something anyone can and should do. We’ve seen that it works, especially with younger folks.”

Doyle agrees, as she has encountered several peers who have gleaned social justice information via social media and extended allyship to the Black community as a result.

“I definitely have faith in my generation,” she said. “Every generation is different and the way each generation thinks can and usually does change over time. But the mindset that my generation has is going in the right direction. I think we can be the change the Black community wants to see. With or without our acknowledgment of Independence Day.”

The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.