Thursday, July 4
6:00 – 9:00 pm
Belmont Beach
1300 N. White River Pkwy. Dr. W.
PSL Indianapolis is celebrating this Fourth of July politically by hosting a community cookout and potluck. We welcome fellow progressives, radicals, and revolutionary organizers, activists, and those who know—or want to know—the real history of the U.S. to join us for an evening of conversation, fun, and food!
PSL Indianapolis is excited to work with fellow Indianapolis Liberation Center member-organization Arte Mexicano en Indiana on this program as they continue to do important work on the near west side with regular access to Belmont Beach and more surrounding resources to connect us to a strong working class community!
For most people in the U.S., “Independence Day,” or the Fourth of July, is an apolitical holiday. If we don’t have to work, we use it as an excuse to gather with friends and family. Few, if any, celebrate it politically—and with good reason.
As Frederick Douglass asked and answered in his July 5, 1852 speech delivered at the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York:
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”
Although chattel slavery has been abolished through armed struggle and the Black and New Afrikan Liberation movement has made remarkable strides, Douglass’ words still ring true today. On July 4, let’s build community so we can soon celebrate a real independence day!