Useful Links
A peoples history of the Fourth of July: A collection of people's history stories from July 4th beyond 1776.
The stories include July 4th anniversaries such as when slavery was abolished in New York (1827), Frederick Douglass's speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" (1852), the Reconstruction era attack on a Black militia that led to the Hamburg Massacre (1876), protest of segregation at an amusement park in Baltimore (1963), and more.
www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-fourth-of-july/
The stories include July 4th anniversaries such as when slavery was abolished in New York (1827), Frederick Douglass's speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" (1852), the Reconstruction era attack on a Black militia that led to the Hamburg Massacre (1876), protest of segregation at an amusement park in Baltimore (1963), and more.
www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-fourth-of-july/
The Deleted Passage of the Declaration of Independence
When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson’s passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George’s incitement of “domestic insurrections among us.” Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jefferson’s original passage on slavery appears below.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery/
When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson’s passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George’s incitement of “domestic insurrections among us.” Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jefferson’s original passage on slavery appears below.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery/
Examining A Racist Passage In The Declaration Of Independence
NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with historian Donald Grinde Jr., a member of the Yamassee Nation and University of Buffalo professor, about the racist passage the Declaration of Independence www.npr.org/2021/07/02/1012680822/examining-a-racist-passage-in-the-declaration-of-independence |
When Thomas Jefferson penned ‘all men are created equal,’ he did not mean individual equality, says Stanford scholar
When the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it was a call for the right to statehood rather than individual liberties, says Stanford historian Jack Rakove. Only after the American Revolution did people interpret it as a promise for individual equality.
news.stanford.edu/2020/07/01/meaning-declaration-independence-changed-time/
When the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it was a call for the right to statehood rather than individual liberties, says Stanford historian Jack Rakove. Only after the American Revolution did people interpret it as a promise for individual equality.
news.stanford.edu/2020/07/01/meaning-declaration-independence-changed-time/
Founding Fathers and Slaveholders
To what degree do the attitudes of Washington and Jefferson toward slavery diminish their achievements?
www.smithsonianmag.com/history/founding-fathers-and-slaveholders-72262393/
To what degree do the attitudes of Washington and Jefferson toward slavery diminish their achievements?
www.smithsonianmag.com/history/founding-fathers-and-slaveholders-72262393/
Lesson
The declaration of independence: created equal? This lesson focuses on a few key concepts of the Declaration of Independence, beginning with the phrase "All men are created equal." Students gain an appreciation of Thomas Jefferson's efforts to deal with the complex issues of equality and slavery in the Declaration of Independence. Objectives Students will be able to:
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/declaration-of-independence-created-equal/ |