The Apostrophe Blog
After this shameful week in the United States Senate, later in the House of Representatives, and today when Felon 47 takes out his Sharpie and scrawls his illegible nonsense on a bill that should never have been sanctioned let alone been allowed to pass, celebrating a holiday about independence from the rule of kings seems like the last thing anyone with any morals and integrity, compassion and empathy for her/his fellow human beings would want to do.
Instead, give a listen to a reading of this scathing speech by the Honorable Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” as orated by his descendants. Douglass delivered this speech to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York on July 5, 1852. So much of what he speaks to is (tragically) still relevant in the U.S.A. today.
Sherrilyn Ifill, the long-time civil rights attorney now leading The 14thAmendment Center for Law & Democracy at Howard University Law School, expresses what I am feeling in her Substack newsletter today:
“Today many more Americans than ever in my lifetime are asking questions of and about our nation. Is this America? What is our national identity? What does it mean to be an American? How can so many institutions of our country have failed? Has our nation squandered its claims, however questionable, to moral leadership? To democracy? To decency? Who are we? What are we becoming? […] Is it even possible to set our country on a course for redemption? How can we come to terms with the fact that half our fellow citizens embrace cruelty, racism, ignorance, and cultism over democracy? How will we navigate the violence and cruelty of these times and protect ourselves, our families, and our integrity? If you are not asking those questions today, you haven’t been paying attention.”
These are questions anyone with a heart and a soul needs to be asking herself…
The public domain image above is a lithograph portrait of Frederick Douglass by Alexander Hay Ritchie from circa 1875.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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- Nothing to Celebrate Today… - July 4, 2025
