History – NAACP New Bedford

My Country ‘Tis of Thee

by W.E.B. DuBois Of course you have faced the dilemma: it is announced, they all smirk and rise. If they are ultra, they remove their hats and look ecstatic; then they look at you. What shall you do? Noblesse oblige; you cannot be boorish, or ungracious; and too, after all it is your country and you do love its ideals if not all of its realities. Now, then, I have thought of a way out: Arise, gracefully remove your hat, and tilt your head. Then sing as follows, powerfully and with deep unction. They’ll hardly note the little changes and...

Honoring two Civil Rights legends

With a heavy heart, we honor two civil rights legends today. Civil rights icon and 17-term Georgia congressman Rep. John Lewis has died at the age of 80. Representative Lewis was a leader of the civil rights movement, champion of peaceful resistance, and a leading voice across America for over 30 years. Civil rights veteran, Rev. C.T. Vivian has died at the age of 95. An associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1965 he was beaten by a segregationist sheriff in Selma while trying to register Black voters - a moment that helped spark the march that pressured...

History

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?

On July 5,1852, Frederick Douglass delivered the following speech in Rochester, New York. It is a fiery reproach of American independence — "your 4th of July" not "ours" — demanding that White America keep its unfulfilled promises. Douglass's words are, sadly, as relevant today as they were when he spoken them 86 years after American Independence. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my...