Why I prefer to celebrate Juneteenth rather than July 4th

 

As a child, I loved the Fourth of July and looked forward each year to going to the fireworks displays. But when I grew up and became a Quaker, I began to question the pervasive violence of July 4th--the orgy of fireworks that makes some parts of our cities seem like war zones. When I hear the line "Bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there," I don't think of the British attacking Washington, DC which inspired our national anthem; I think of Hiroshima, Dresden, the carpet bombing of Vietnam, drone strikes, and much more. That's why I never stand up for the National Anthem and feel empathy for those who “take a knee.” I love my country but abhor the violence for which it all too often stands.

As the Fourth of July approaches, it is worth noting that Quakers did not celebrate this holiday, and it cost them dearly. The first official Fourth of July celebration did not happen until 1781, but on July 4^th, 1776, there were a few celebrations in Philadelphia  and in 1777 there were many more. That day was also marked by violence. Homes of Quakers were vandalized by those who believed the Quakers were not patriotic because they did not celebrate the Fourth of July. Because of their pacifist convictions, Quakers did not celebrate any holidays that commemorated military victories.

We Americans like to imagine we are a peaceful nation, yet we are "largest purveyor of war in the world," as Martin Luther King once said, referring to the US arms trade (where we are still number 1). Americans believe passionately in the myth of redemptive violence, and equate freedom with violence, because we imagine our nation could not have become free without a bloody revolution.

In the 1770s the  Quakers in Philadelphia believed otherwise. They sent emissaries to negotiate with the British. They refused to accept tea that had been taxed, but instead of disguising themselves as Indians and throwing it into the Delaware River, they quietly paid the British merchants to take it back to England. They did what they could to avoid war, and I believe the Quakers were right. I highly recommend the book The Missing Peace: The Search for Nonviolent Alternatives in United States History by James Juhnke and Carol Hunter (2004), which describes what Quakers did to avert a war with England.

I feel these Quakers were on the right track. History shows it was possible to achieve independence without bloodshed, as was the case with Canada and Australia. It took time and patience, and I'm sure, a bit of cunning, but think of all the lives that were saved.

The African American historian and former UCSB professor Gerald Horne has given me another reason to question the conventional ideas about the 4^th of July. In his book The Counterrevolution of 1776, he debunks that notion that the American Revolution was “a great step forward for humanity.” He points out, “The Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British” and for good reason. He shows that “in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.”

“The so-called Revolutionary War,” Horne writes, “was in part a counter-revolution, a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their right to enslave others.”

This book opened my eyes to an aspect of the American Revolution that was never discussed in my education. You can hear Gerald Horne explain his thesis by going to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C71DIrOmkBM.

I was also never taught that our slave-holding “founding fathers” were deeply in debt because of their lavish lifestyle and used slaves as collateral—a fact that historian Clyde Ford explores in his forthcoming book Of Blood and Sweat: Black Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth. Ford shows how our banking institutions were tainted by the slave system from the onset and have continued to privilege whites over people of color. For this reason, he calls for debt relief, eviction moratoriums, and reparations.

It is not a coincidence that in 1776, Quakers in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting unanimously came to unity that Quakers were forbidden from owning slaves, and 14 years later they petitioned the U.S. Congress for the abolition of slavery. Quakers are known for being abolitionists, but they were not free from racism. In the early days of colonial America, some Quakers, including William Penn, owned slaves, but eventually the vast majority of Quakers saw the Light, renounced slavery, and some became key leaders in abolitionist movement. Because of their opposition to slavery, and rejection of violence, Quakers saw no reason to celebrate the 4^th of July. For me as a Quaker, Juneteenth is a holiday much more worthy of celebration.