Independence Day, Systemic Violence, Retrospective Justice, and Quakers:Remembering the Words of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

Dear F/friends,

For this Independence Day, the BlackQuaker Project invites you to reflect on the words of Frederick Douglass, whose tireless advocacy for African American liberation and Women’s Rights as an abolitionist, orator, author, and statesman often goes overlooked by historians and remains unknown to the general public. Among Douglass’s most famous words was his speech, “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?,” a critique of the hypocrisy behind Independence Day:

"What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?... I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me… You may rejoice, I must mourn."

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(Frederick Douglass, 5 July 1852)

Originally delivered during the decade before the Civil War, Douglass’s words remain all too relevant today as African Americans remain victims of systemic violence across the fields of education (such as the school to prison pipeline), health (racist medical practices such as the harmful myth of African Americans having a higher pain tolerance), housing (“urban renewal equals black removal”), and politics (such as poll taxes, discriminatory voter ID laws, and intimidation from “poll watchers”) among other forms. We recommend that Friends confront these present-day systems of exploitation and bondage with anti-violence, not merely non-violence. We also recommend that Friends implement educational programs of retrospective/reparatory justice—both education and action—to redress the historical crimes of white supremacy, which Independence Day annually ignores.

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Douglass and Quakers:

Beyond the continued relevance of Frederick Douglass’s rhetoric on Independence Day, what further significance does the legendary abolitionist and his encounters with Quakers have for the Religious Society of Friends? On 9 June 1849 in Saratoga, New York, Douglass lectured to Friends at the Dean's Corners Schoolhouse. Adapting the content of his anti-slavery oration to Quaker affairs, Douglass questioned the influence of pro-slavery Quaker ministers, critized support within the RSOF for slave-owning presidential candidate Zachary Taylor, and called attention to some Quaker’s disapproval of certain anti-slavery organizations. Reflecting on the event in his abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, Douglass recalled his attempts demonstrate how certain Quakers supported slavery:

"I instanced the case of Nicholas Brown, a distinguished preacher of theirs [Quakers], who is reported to have said that he “had visited in the South, and had seen that the slaves were better provided for, and were better off than the colored people North” thus affording aid and comfort to the slave-holder, and steeling his conscience against the appeals of the abolitionist."

(Frederick Douglass, The North Star, 22 June 1849)

Despite the role Quakers played in helping to found and lead abolitionist groups in the USA, this encounter between Douglass and the RSOF shows that many Quakers still supported slavery in the decades leading up to the Civil War.

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Retrospective/Reparatory Justice:

The BlackQuaker Project reccommends Friends acknowledge their shared history as slave-owners and supporters of the institution of slavery and take active steps towards supporting retrospective/reparatory justice:

1. An acknowledgement of an offense.

2. A commitment to truth-telling and memorialization.

3. A making of amends in the present.

For further details, please see Dr. Harold D. Weaver’s January 2021 Friends Journal article, “A Proposed Plan for Retrospective Justice.”

Our ministry also wishes to commend recent activities of Friends as an early step towards reparatory/retrospective justice: (1) the 2021 Minute of Reconciliation of Abington Monthly Meeting (PA), recently endorsed by Abington Quarterly Meeting with a recommendation that it be made available to all members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting; (2) Britain Yearly Meeting’s commitment to anti-racism in their 2021 epistle; (3) the acknowledgement of involvement in slavery from Baltimore Yearly Meeting; and (4) the ongoing efforts of Raleigh Friends Meeting to make Raleigh City Council pass a resolution of reparative justice. Finally, in the United Kingdom, we recognize the Rowntree Society’s significant acknowledgment of its participation in systems of forced labor, colonialism, and slavery in Africa.

To learn more about our writings on retrospective/reparatory justice and systemic violence, please consider reading our October 2020 Pendle Hill pamphlet, Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives by Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr. To learn more about Douglass’s incredible life and contributions to freedom in the USA and abroad (especially the Irish colonial struggle against the English), we highly recommend Dr. David W. Blight’s monumental, award-winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

Please write to us at the blackquakerproject@gmail.com with your comments and questions.

–The BlackQuaker Project