I try to remember to post this every year in some form to remind us that the history that most of us were taught had a few holes in it. For most of us the horrible history of slavery and subsequent racism is packaged up into a something totally unlike reality.

Beyond that, our country seems to change a great deal from one year to the next. I hope to remind us of the founding principles on which this country was founded. It is certainly feeling as if those principles are eroding in the face of a person and a party bent on oligarchic rule.

Introduced by Amy Goodman of democracynow! Here is James Earle Jones presenting the Frederick Douglass “What To A Slave Is Your Fourth of July?” (6 minutes:)