Consider these well-known words from Patrick Henry of Virginia who said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” That is a phrase most of us learned in elementary school. Here are some words from that same Patrick Henry that you probably did not learn in school. When the U.S. Constitution was being drafted, the issue of slavery became a sticking point. Some people wanted to end slavery right away. How could you claim freedom for yourself while holding other people in lifelong bondage? However, slaveholders like Patrick Henry of Virginia had a vastly different view. He said, “We ought to possess them in the manner we inherited them from our ancestors. Blacks’ freedom is incompatible wit the felicity of our country.”1
When the Second Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution with the idea of the right to bear arms and the need for a well-regulated militia, the truth is that the right to bear arms was not granted to black Americans, and the role of the militia was to prevent or suppress slave insurrections.2 When the U.S. Constitution decided to count enslaved Africans as 3/5ths of a person for purposes of taxation and how many white members of Congress should be allocated to each state, that same clause included these four, haunting words, “Excluding Indians not taxed.” That means that while enslaved Africans had a value to this country as a labor force, it was never intended that Native Americans had anything to look forward to — except annihilation or forced removal to reservations.
Freedom Is a Mighty Fine Thing, but who can enjoy that freedom fully?
To this day, we are still working to define what freedom entails and who is eligible to enjoy it. You would think that freedom would include being free to buy a home anywhere you can afford to move. However, racial segregation is as entrenched today as it ever was. Some people are directed to live in certain regions and made to feel unwanted and unwelcome if they want to live outside of those limits. Some people want to be free to vote for the candidates of their choosing, but efforts are being made in states across this country to limit access to voting in such a way that we are now being governed by minority rule. Consider that five Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Presidents who did not win the popular vote in their elections: George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Consider that there are fifty Republican Senators and two Democratic U.S. Senators using the filibuster to prevent any progressive agendas from being discussed, much less enacted.
You would think that in a country where most of the population holds a certain view, that those who serve in government would take that fact into consideration. Over 80% of this country wants some limits on gun purchases and who can carry those guns. Most Americans want AR-15 semiautomatic rifles to be banned, but last week six people on the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier, not harder to get and carry guns. Now you can buy a gun without a background check, without applying for a license, and without any training in how to use or care for a weapon. In the state of Ohio is easier to get and carry a gun than it is to get a driver’s license and drive a car. Whose freedom are we advancing with that decision?
While we are talking about guns and freedom, what shall we say about the case just last week in Akron, Ohio where city police pursued a man — Jaylen Walker — who tried to evade being stopped by the police, and as a result was shot at over 90 times by several police officers and struck over 60 times including while he was already on the ground. Most people in this country want reasonable police reform. That would include not shooting a man 60 times who never fired even one shot at the police.
Most people in this country, including me, believe in a woman’s right to make her own decisions about matters of reproduction. That has been the law of the land since Roe v. Wade was adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. Shall a woman be sent to prison for ten years for getting an abortion even though she was raped by a stranger or a member of her family? Shall doctors be imprisoned for performing an abortion? Shall neighbors be allowed to collect $10,000 for reporting on someone who drives a person to an abortion clinic?
Do you find it interesting that Clarence Thomas wants to overturn same-sex marriage because it is not guaranteed in the Constitution, but cannot say anything about interracial marriage which was illegal in this country until 1961? If you want to strip away any rights that were not enshrined in the Constitution when it was written in the 18th century, then it is certain that no one contemplated interracial marriage, since that document could imagine black people only as slaves or non-citizens.
Are we still the United States of America? We are rigidly divided on so many things. Who should vote? Whose vote should count? Which elections should be considered fraudulent because a preferred candidate did not win? How do police officers enforce the law based upon which community or racial group they encounter? Why does anyone need to own a military-style rifle? Why does someone claim to be pro-life concerning birth, but support policies that underfund urban schools, or cut nutritional programs for the poor children who they insist must be born? These are just a few things to think about as we reflect on the meaning of the 4th of July.
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1 Carol Anderson, THE SECOND: Rave and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021, p. 30.
2 Ibid, p. 28.
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The Rev. Marvin A. McMickle, pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, retired in 2019 as president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York, where he had served since 2011.
