What a HORROR, to have Frederick Douglass, our most inspirational figure and the most valiant representative of the black brothers perceive of our great Independence Day as a hypocritical sham! Henceforth, we must pledge, fellow abolitionists, that the truths of how their treatment will be reconsidered, and our efforts in the matter will be told!

With simply one observance to the south, one could already utterly question our legitimacy; are not those people still confined with unjust labor? Do we still continue to celebrate in “hollow mockery” of them here, in lieu of truthful action? Us and our black brothers are still distant; a great barrier of differences continues to persist between us, and it will be up to us to bring it down. There is still much left to be done, and we have yet to do more; a “storm”, a “whirlwind”, an “earthquake”, so we must!

The American church, as Frederick Douglass exposes, is “superlatively guilty” in its act of “upholding” slavery still with an “ability to abolish slavery”. We have always supported the church, but how can this so-called piety be in favor of such unquestionable cruelty? Albert Barnes reasoned that “There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.” Does one not see? Have one not seen, for the hundreds of years of our nation’s history?! For slavery to be abolished, the foundational ideologies of the country will have to be reconsidered.

Fellow abolitionists, remember that our black brothers are as passionate as we are: having fought for America in the Revolutionary War, they are no less human than us, no less sympathetic than us. And yet, “seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia” condemn a black man to death, of which “only two” will cause a white man similar punishment. Why have they not been accepted, under the flag of this very nation of freedom and equality? Why have they been neglected, left to die in an ocean of crops they could never even taste? No one will ever be “there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him”, so why have they been in the United States, where “all men are equal”!?

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” It will be necessary, therefore, for us to improve our efforts, fight for equality and against the current idealisms of the American church. We as abolitionists, must muster the storm, the earthquake, the whirlwind!