Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. July fourth, it's that glorious
Speaker 1: day when we celebrate America's independence and Great Britain. And
Speaker 1: it's also my birthday. I said, it's my birthday, and
Speaker 1: if y'all give me donuts again, I'm gonna hurt somebody.
Speaker 1: But despite that, there are black folks out there who
Speaker 1: have a complicated relationship with the fourth of July, you know,
Speaker 1: because of all the slavery and segregation and redlining and
Speaker 1: beliefy brutality and Megan the Stallion not getting the respect
Speaker 1: she deserves. And I get that, but did you know
Speaker 1: that there was a time when July four was a
Speaker 1: very black holiday. In fact, there was a time when
Speaker 1: America thought black people celebrated July fourth a little too much.
Speaker 1: Here's the story. Before the Civil War, Independence Day was
Speaker 1: a day for white people to say, eelebrate by parading
Speaker 1: around town and getting wasted on cheap foods. It was
Speaker 1: basically a Patriots game for the original patriots. But for
Speaker 1: the growing antislavery movement, July fourth was a shameful day
Speaker 1: that represented America's hypocrisy, because how are you going to
Speaker 1: celebrate freedom when you're chaining up millions of people. That's
Speaker 1: like Britney Spears, Dad's throwing the party because he can
Speaker 1: write his own checks. And no one expressed this anger
Speaker 1: better than Frederick Douglas in a speech he gave on
Speaker 1: July fourth, eighteen fifty two, where he told white Americans
Speaker 1: that the existence of slavery in this country brands your
Speaker 1: Republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense,
Speaker 1: and your Christianity as a lie. Damn. That was a
Speaker 1: read straight from the Library of Congress. I would have
Speaker 1: been like, yeah, and your wigs look googlous, your petticoat
Speaker 1: smell like horseballs, and your wood teeth got termmites. But
Speaker 1: you're all dying of consumption. Ask I know doubt when
Speaker 1: I see it. But then the Civil War happened, and
Speaker 1: it completely flipped the script in July fourth, especially in
Speaker 1: the South, because now black people can actually celebrate freedom,
Speaker 1: and white Southerners were in no mood to celebrate the
Speaker 1: Independence day of a country that had just whooped their assets.
Speaker 1: So suddenly Independence Day became an almost exclusively black holiday.
Speaker 1: In the former Confederacy, black people had picnics, they watched fireworks,
Speaker 1: they recited the Emancipation Proclamation in the Thirteenth Amendment, which
Speaker 1: sounds like fun except for reading on those documents. I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe if they put like a beat to
Speaker 1: it or something neat the sleepy nor involuntary servitude except
Speaker 1: is punishment for crumps of the party. Shelley should exist
Speaker 1: within the United States. Now, it's no surprise that racist
Speaker 1: whites didn't like Black people celebrating their freedom from racist whites,
Speaker 1: so they decided the party at the stop. Starting in
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies, white mobs began a hacking Black gatherings
Speaker 1: of July fourth, and soon the state legislature's pass laws
Speaker 1: banning celebrations near black neighborhoods, pushing parades out of city limits,
Speaker 1: and even forbidding street vendors from setting up food saws
Speaker 1: and black areas. Do you know how racist you have
Speaker 1: to be to want less kunnel cake? Basically, these racist
Speaker 1: rod bakers were the original barbecue backs, and stopping Black
Speaker 1: celebrations with just one part of their century long struggle
Speaker 1: against black freedom and racial justice. So I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but this July fourth, I'll be celebrating Independence
Speaker 1: Day as hard as I celebrate Junete as a day
Speaker 1: of freedom for all Americans, not just because it's fun,
Speaker 1: but also it's because they get to piss off all
Speaker 1: those dead racist watching from hell, and also because it's
Speaker 1: my birthday. Now give me all that fun okake, Happy Independence,
Speaker 1: say to everybody. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven
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