Professor Tanya Hernández was interviewed in a USA Today article discussing the complex relationship that many marginalized individuals have with the Fourth of July.
It’s common for marginalized U.S. citizens to question reveling in Fourth of July festivities, according to Fordham University critical race theory law professor Tanya K. Hernández.
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Hernández invoked abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” while ruminating on the subject. “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me,” Douglass said.
“It is disconcerting how many of Douglass’s concerns with social and civic exclusion still exist long after the abolition of slavery,” Hernández says.
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“The best way to celebrate the holiday is the same way Frederick Douglass did – by using it as a day for honest reflection on how best to have ‘the rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed (by our forebearers)’ extended to us all,” Hernández says.”