July 4. Independence Day. A time for fireworks and BBQs, parades and celebrations. A time to remember the birth of a great nation. And a time to demand that it be as great as it can be.

See, if July 4, 1776, was the culmination of years of resistance against oppressive British rule, over the last two and a half centuries people in the US have also used this day to also make their stand against injustice, inequality, and oppression and demand their rights in the United States.

July 5, 1852, abolitionist Frederick Douglass gives his speech “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro.” 

“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.”

This is actor Danny Glover reading part of his speech, during an event in Los Angeles, on October 5, 2005. 

“To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, 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 the United States, at this very hour.”

July 4, 1876. Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Women suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony, disrupt the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Declaration of Independence. They demand that women also be given the right to vote. They present a “Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States.”

“We ask of our rulers, at this hour, no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation.”

This is a clip of their declaration, read by Betty Wolfanger in 2017. 

”We ask justice, we ask equality. We ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”

Women would have to wait another 50 years until they were finally given the right to vote. 

July 4, 1963. Baltimore, Maryland. Hundreds of civil rights activists amass at Gwynn Oak Amusement Park. They’re there to protest the park’s policies of segregation. The park’s refusal to allow African Americans entrance. 300 people were arrested, including 20 faith leaders.

The New York Times wrote that it was “the first time that so large a group of important clergymen of all three major faiths had participated together in a direct concerted protest against discrimination.”

This protest came just a month before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic 1963 march on Washington.

July 4, 1966. Rio Grande City, Texas. The Independent Workers’ Association, made up of largely Mexican American farmworkers, begin a march that would take them 490 miles from Rio Grande City to the Texas state capital, Austin.

“La Marcha,” as they called it, would take nearly two months and pass through Corpus Christi and San Antonio, through intense summer heat. They demanded a $1.25 minimum wage and an eight-hour work day. State officials denied their demands, but farmworkers would continue to protest into the following year. Their months-long journey across Texas would go down in history as the largest march in the state’s history.

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Hi folks, thanks for listening. I’m your host Michael Fox.

As you may have noted, the story today was a little different. It looked back at many moments of July 4 resistance in US history. All of these tiny vignettes were taken from historian Howard Zinn’s incredible “People’s History of Fourth of July.” That is part of the Zinn Education Project, which is based on his People’s History of the United States. Their work looks to promote and support the teaching of people’s history in classrooms across the country. 

If you don’t know these incredible resources yet, please check them out. There are even more stories of July 4 resistance that I didn’t have time to dive into today. I’ll add a link in the show notes.

Folks, also, if you like what you hear and enjoy this podcast, please consider becoming a subscriber on my Patreon at Patreon.com/mfox. It’s only a few dollars a month. I have a ton of exclusive content there, only available to my supporters. And every supporter really makes a difference. 

This is episode 55 of Stories of Resistance, a podcast series co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, I bring you stories of resistance and hope like this. Inspiration for dark times. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment or leave a review.

Thanks for listening. See you next time.