What a Day!!

Update: If you caught Rev. Eugene Rivers on Hardball with Chris Matthews, before you jump on the "black folks need to get it together" bus, let me assure you he don't know what the . . . eh hmm . . . he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Even I feel like an American. For the first time in a long time, maybe since the 3rd grade, I actually feel like I'm a part of this country.

This made me laugh! Amen, Rev. Lowry, Amen!

This? This was just beautiful! W, you ain't got to go home . . .


And this because I think it's funny!!

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tribute to the Bush Administration - Christine Ebersole

Kill McCain! He's a Terrorist!

Yeah. That's right. I'm an Obama supporter and I'm shouting "Kill McCain" and "He's a terrorists" and "Assassinate him!"

Yeah. That's right. Soak it up conservatives. Let that marinate for a minute.

Oh. I'm not finished. He is a terrorist. And not a very good one at that. We had no just cause to go into Vietnam. In fact, from what I recall, we never declared war. We just there killing innocent Vietnamese and dying by the thousands. That makes his as much a terrorist as any "Arab." And that makes the US as much a "terrorist state" as supposedly Iran and Syria.

So chew on that conservatives. How does that feel? How does that sound?

Now, I don't actually think of McCain as a terrorist, or at least not yet, and I don't wish him to be killed or anything like that. But for McCain to say this morning that he's proud of all his supporters, even the ones who think Obama is a single-cell Arab terrorist who should be killed . . . I can't even put it into words. Honestly, I was already upset that McCain spent much of the debate last night lying. I certainly didn't like his stance on the "health" of the mother in the case of abortion. And I honestly didn't think my opinion of him could be any less. I thought it hit rock bottom last night. But this morning, when he declared his pride for all his supporters, McCain dug a hole and fell right into it.

And for all that guy on Hardball said, John McCain has not corrected people shouting "kill him!" and "he's a terrorist!" concerning Barack Obama. And like the guy on Hardball is saying now, John Lewis is absolutely right: it only takes one crazy person to assassinate someone. So, McCain pride is just repulsive.

And that reminds me of something else. Let's drop this illusion that Ronald Regan is such a good president for having ended the Cold War without spilling blood. That's a lie. Maybe he "ended" the Cold War. But he personally called for the spilling of Grenadian blood as part of the "Cold War." The Vietnam Conflict was about the "Cold War." Osama bin Laden earned his bonafide as a mujahudeen fighting for Afghanistan in the "Cold War." The Congo is in the mess it's in partly because the US assassinated Patrice Lumumba, helped support the cleptocracy of Mobutu Sese Seko. And now, over 5, maybe even 10 million people have died and millions of women are raped daily over a conflict that started because of the "Cold War."

The notion that the Cold War ended without blood shed is not only a lie - tens of thousands of Americans died - it's racists - millions of people of color died.

This Time, I'm Adding My View

The ladies were at it again. I meant to actually get up and watch, but I overslept.

Here's the thing. McCain is losing. So he and his supporters, including Elizabeth Hasselbeck, are resorting to smear, fear, and racist tactics. Neither of them, and no one else I know, has completely "all-America" association. So this whole thing is completely repulsive. They claim Obama isn't being "completely honest." But what more does the electorate need to know? And what difference does it make anyway?

Hasselbeck is also accusing the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr of hating his country. Even though he voluntarily joined the marines during Vietnam. She's basically jumping from his finding fault with the country to him hating the country. And let's just be clear. There are plenty of faults to found with America, even discluding racism.

And for the record, as a black person, probably an overwhelming majority of us have mixed feelings about this country. We can look past the faults of this country, especially it's anti-black bias, to get to the affectionate "love" most conservatives think everyone should be. What's more, the overwhelming majority of us are adults. We understand that a country, even the one of our citizenship, isn't something to be "loved."

Also, I have to deal with this right-wing lie that the Democrats are at fault for our economic crisis. Let's get one thing straight. Our country's economic decisions have been made for the past 8 years or more from a conservative standpoint. Supply-side, lower taxes, deregulation, that's what has gotten us into the trouble we're in now. No one forced banks to do millions of "sub-prime" lending, aimed primarily at people of color. What Democrats and African Americans wanted was an end to the red-lining that was keeping African Americans from getting loans that rightly qualified for.

And once you look at the numbers, millions of people of color were given sub-prime loans even though they qualified for prime loans. Which, I should point out, is why the overwhelming majority of African Americans don't "love" this country. "Whitey" screws everybody, us especially, and then turns and blames it on us black folk. It had right after the Civil War when crime dramatically increased in the South, and even though 90% of the crime was committed by whites, including ex-Confederate soldiers, somehow, the entire increase was blamed on recently freedmen and women. So, we're used to this song and dance, and it is why essays and articles that Barack Obama's meteoric rise proves the end of "black politics" and racism fall on . . . well, I wouldn't say deaf ears to the extent that we do hear what's being said. Perhaps uncaring ears because we know you're lying to yourself and just aren't willing to accept your lies for ourselves.

So, the system remains racist. And blaming black people and other racial minorities for this crisis when just about every CEO and COO and CFO of the failing companies are white is racist as well.

But anyway, voter. Be smart. Be wise. If this is all McCain has, then he doesn't have anything positive to say about himself. And also, take note that he makes these accusations at rallies, not at the debates. He preaches to the choir. He makes these comments where no one can respond.

And as far as the mandate on parents to place health care coverage on their children - parents will have government assistance available to them. This ain't about the parent. It's about the child.

Here I'm Is

Yeah, I don't mean that sentence literally. It's not acceptable in any form of English. It's just something I heard my little cousin say when she was 2-years old.

Again, today. Some stream of consciousness about the world around me.

Let me start by saying that Americans, especially those who lack the melanin content of others, need to get over ourselves. We're not God's gift to the world. Right at this very moment, while we claim to support democracy and are willing to occupy a country that posed no danger to us, we're undermining a democracy in South America. Quite possibly just because Evo Morales and his left-leaning government doesn't dance to our tune.

No, America. We're not the greatest place on earth. We're not the the Disney Land of the world. Get over it!

We claim to be a land of religious tolerance. Not true. Ask the Muslim in your neighborhood. There aren't any? Try your job. Still none? Find someone who looks Arab, promise you're not wired, and ask them their truest thoughts of America.

We claim to be a Christian nation. That's not true, either. Oh, I know how candidates for president have to profess a belief in Christ. I know how we treat the poor, the orphaned, the widowed, etc, etc, so on and so forth. All of which leads me to the conclusion that we got a bunch of people who're crying, "Lord, Lord!" and ain't nowhere near heaven.

We claim to be a racially tolerant nation. Well, I'm black so I know that's a load of crap. In fact, that's what the previously mentioned male friend added to my list of traits I want in a husband. He's anti-assimilation. Which is odd if you knew him. But, that's what I heard him say. And, well, I like that. I'm anti-assimilation, too. Yes, I can speak standard American English with the best of'em. I have my "white" voice. I can "act white" when necessary. But ultimately, I feel as though I'm being deceptive when I do those things. And I am indeed deceiving the audience of my "white" performance into accepting me for the person they would like me to be, and not the person I really am. I do that to get what I want. Studies have shown that the average person responds more positively to whiteness than blackness. So, I get what I want and go on with life.

I mean, take a look at the most liberal site you can find. Huffington Post. Alternet.org. Read the articles, then read the comments.

Which further proves my point that we're not a Christian nation. Over 30% of our citizens, in order to be successful, have to put on a performance. We 30% have to spend at least 8 hours of our day lying about who we really are. Um, yeah, any religious leader who spent more time with the so-called "sinners and tax-collecters" than he did high priests and scribes would not force others to be anything but who they are in order to be successful.

Now, granted, I'm kinda down right now. My football fantasy teams aren't performing as well as I had hoped. You'd think I'd be able to just shake that off, but no.

So, here I'm is with a few of my general complaints about America.

And when I mention our lack of religious tolerance, I'm including dogmatic atheists and agnostics as well. It bothers me that these intellectuals who understandably demand rational proof of God can't separate religious teachings from religious people and their most demonstrably religious actions. I once can across someone who was trying to make the barb that in Christianity, a man dies to receive 10 virgins while at least Islam gives him 72. The guy was referencing a parable, a story Jesus told to help explain how the Kingdom of God works. The fact that he couldn't tell the difference between a parable and actual promises led me to the conclusion that he's not the genius atheist he thinks he is.

Which brings me to another point. We claim to be a sexually tolerant nation. We're not. Whether or not your sexuality and sexual activity is accepted depends on your race, your gender, and the particular group you're in at the moment. We have a healthy margin of people who believe whole-heartedly in sexual purity - at least for females - and who decry the relatively high amount of sexual content on TV. As though they can't turn the channel. Then there're those who think waiting until you're married to have sex is a terrible idea. No, no one's actually explained to me why that is, but whoa! Just find yourself someone who's "sexually liberated" and find out just how uptight they are.

Yes. I'm a virgin. Oh, believe me. It's by choice. If at this moment right now, I decided to have sex, I could change my networking-site status and find at least 10 sexual partners available tonight. And another 10 who'd be willing to fly in or fly me out by tomorrow.

And, as promised, I suppose I should list some general complaints about the world at large.

Okay. Let me first start with America's international affairs. We went to war with the Taliban if Afganistan, illegally invaded Iraq, talking tough about Iran and Russia. Meanwhile, there's a genocide in the Darfur region of the country of Sudan on the continent of Africa and what have we done? At least 5 million people have died in the war(s) in Congo on the same continent and what have we done? . . . Oh, I should be clear. I mean, what have we done to promote peace? Cause the fact that we're selling weapons in these regions does count for doing something, just not something constructive. And before you fault "those people" as though we American are above such destructive actions, interview some Iraqis and also, some women in our military.

And as far as international affairs apart from America, Georgia needs to stop their illegal, genocidal actions in South Ossetia.

Okay. I gotta go now. But I'll be back. And I'm not promising a better mood.

We Are the US of America, not the World

I disagree with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on theology, being a Christian.

But he is right about the need for justice and righteousness, and the fact that the USA is doing as much, if not more, damage than good. How it is that we call ourselves a "Christian" nation, but can't fall the simplest of Christian ethics, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is beyond me.

And while I'm all for peace. As an unbeliever pointed out to me, even Jesus said he "did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

So all and all, and with the exclusion of religion, tell me where Ahmadinejad is wrong or how he lied. Don't just say, "He's crazy," and I'm some bigot for agreeing with him, tell me what he said that was untrue or unjust.

A Special Brand of Patiotism

A Special Brand Of Patriotism with My Comments

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, July 4, 2008; A17



Anyone who took U.S. history in high school ought to know that one of the five men killed in the Boston Massacre, the atrocity that helped ignite the American Revolution, was a runaway slave named Crispus Attucks. The question the history books rarely consider is: Why?

Think about it for a moment. For well over a century, British colonists in North America had practiced a particularly cruel brand of slavery, a system of bondage intended not just to exploit the labor of Africans but to crush their spirit as well. Backs were whipped and broken, families systematically separated, traditions erased, ancient languages silenced. Yet a black man -- to many, nothing more than a piece of property -- chose to stand and die with the patriots of Boston.

Now think about the Buffalo Soldiers and the Tuskegee Airmen. Think about Dorie Miller, who, like so many black sailors in the segregated U.S. Navy of the 1940s, was relegated to kitchen duty -- until Pearl Harbor, when Miller rushed up to the deck of the sinking USS West Virginia, carried wounded sailors to safety and then raked Japanese planes with fire from a heavy machine gun until he ran out of ammunition.

Think about Colin Powell -- but also think about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a former Marine. And consider, as we celebrate Independence Day, how steadfast and complicated black patriotism has always been.

The subject is particularly relevant now that the first African American with a realistic chance of becoming president, Barack Obama, has felt compelled to give a lengthy speech explaining his own patriotism. It is not common, in my experience, for sitting U.S. senators to be questioned on their love of country -- to be grilled about a flag pin, for example, or critiqued on the posture they assume when the national anthem is played. For an American who attains such high office, patriotism is generally assumed.

It seems that some people don't want to give Obama the benefit of that assumption, however, and I have to wonder whether that's because he's black. And then I have to wonder why.

The fact that African American patriotism is never simple doesn't mean it's in any way halfhearted; to the contrary, complicated relationships tend to be the deepest and strongest. It's a historical fact that black soldiers and sailors who fought overseas in World War II came home to Southern cities where they had to ride in the back of the bus -- and that they were angry that the nation for which they had sacrificed would treat them this way. To some whites, I guess, it may seem logical to be suspicious of black patriotism -- to believe that anger must somehow temper love of country.

It doesn't, of course. It never has. Black Americans are just more intimately and acutely aware of some of our nation's flaws than many white Americans might be. This generalization is less true of my sons than of my parents, and I hope that someday it won't be true at all. I think one must add here, that for the most part, both white and African Americans are ignorant of the reality of present day racism. What Robinson says may be true, but it's not because the country has gotten astronomically better, or that white Americans are more aware, but that African Americans are less. But only in the past half-century has the United States begun to fully extend the rights of citizenship to African Americans -- and only in the past year has the idea that a black man might actually be elected president been more than a plot device for movies and television shows. We're someplace we've never been.

Michelle Obama was sharply attacked for saying that she felt proud of her country for the first time in her adult life. Her phrasing may have been impolitic, but I know exactly what she meant. I knew what she meant, too. The last time I was really proud of my country, I was in elementary school. By middle school, I was starting to have doubts about the greatness of the US of A.

This isn't about whether or not Barack Obama wins. Just the fact that he might win is an incredible change for this country -- and recognizing the importance of that change is, to me, the very essence of patriotism.

What's unpatriotic is pretending that the past never happened. What's unpatriotic is failing to acknowledge that we've struggled with race for nearly 400 years. What's unpatriotic is relegating "black history" to the month of February when, really, it's American history, without which this nation could never be what it is today. Here is where I really, wholeheartedly agree with Robinson. Presently, I can't think of anything to add.

My father, Harold I. Robinson, served in the Army during World War II and has lived to witness this transformative moment of possibility. My father-in-law, the late Edward R. Collins, was a sailor who saw action in the South Pacific; he rests at Arlington National Cemetery. I have no patience with anyone who thinks that patriots don't have brown skin. For my part, one of my grandfathers fought in WWII, at least two of my uncles and my father were in Vietnam, a cousin had been in Afganistan. The fact that the country doesn't treat peoples of color any better than it does is part of the reason you want see me joining the military. My health notwithstanding.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com
dreamsofthesouthwind@gmail.com

July 4th for Black Folks

Frederick Douglass
"The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro"

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great
men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen
to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point
from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable;
and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They
were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the
principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory....

...Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak
here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national
independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural
justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I,
therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and
to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting
from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be
truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my
burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy
could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that
would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and
selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's
jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not
that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame
man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the
disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of 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. The sunlight that brought light and
healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours,
not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand
illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems,
were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me,
by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And
let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose
crimes, towering up to
heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in
irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and
woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered
Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they
that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us
required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing
the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right
hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail
of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered
more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do
not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my
right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with
the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make
me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is
American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the
slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman,
making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the
character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th
of July! Whether we
turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the
conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America.is false to
the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the
future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I
will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is
fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded
and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the
emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery ? the great
sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use
the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that
any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a
slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance
that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on
the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade
more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I
submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the
anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the
people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a
man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders
themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They
acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are
seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man
(no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while
only two of the same
crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the
acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being?
The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern
statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and
penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to
any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to
argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of
the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the
reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then
will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is
it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using
all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building
ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we
are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries,
having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators
and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to
other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific,
feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking,
planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all,
confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life
and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful
owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the
wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled
by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great
difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard
to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Amercans,
dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to
freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively.
To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your
understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not
know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their
liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to
their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash,
to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction,
to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to
starve them into obedience and submission to their mastcrs? Must I argue that a
system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will
not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would
imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did
not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy
in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such
a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is
passed.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had
I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a
fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern
rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle
shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The
feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be
roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the
nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed
and denounced.

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. To him, your celebration is a sham; your
boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity;
your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants,
brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery;
your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, 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.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and
despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every
abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the
everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting
barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival....


...Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this
day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.
There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of
slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is
certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing
encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it
contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by
the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation
to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the
surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without
interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of
hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work
with social impunity. Knowledge was
then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in
mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled
cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away
the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of
the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth.
Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide,
but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion.
Space is comparatively annihilated. -- Thoughts expressed on one side of the
Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.

The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The
Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the
Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no
outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the
all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in
contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment.
'Ethiopia, shall, stretch. out her hand unto Ood." In the fervent aspirations of
William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign,
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
But to all manhood's stature tower,
By equal birth!
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his Prison-house, to thrall
Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive --
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.




The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, Volume II
Pre-Civil War Decade 1850-1860
Philip S. Foner
International Publishers Co., Inc., New York, 1950