Many of you saw Fredrick Douglass’s July 5 speech from 1852 entitled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?,” to the then president, friends and fellow citizens, he proclaimed:
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.
The first images that might come to mind in Douglass’s lesson on our shared history, are those depicting the current systemic cruelty being meted out to babies, and young children imprisoned in “migrant detention centers.” His words should remind us that we are not free until all of us are free.
Freedom involves taking a stand right now. You can be a part of the important work that links our freedom to healing one of this nations original sins. We believe reparations to be a spiritual, social and political intervention.
We need your support to spread the word about reparations as a spiritual journey toward redemption and belonging.
The Truth Telling Project in coalition with many others who will be in Ferguson for our National Grassroots Reparations Convening during the 5 year Mike Brown Jr. Commemoration Weekend in Ferguson from August 8 - 11th. Please consider giving to strengthen our movement through the reparative relationships that spiritual and faith communities will be creating with Black led grassroots organizations on our National Days of Reparations for faith and spiritual communities (#ReparationSundays) August 11th & December 22nd.
We welcome you donate or to become an official co-sponsor. Donate $200 or get your organization to support at $500. With a $500 donation we will list your organization logo on our program booklet.
Click here to see where your organization would be recognized.
Your gift will help our nation understand that reparations is not a just a transaction, but part of the healing that can get us from truth to reconciliation.
Thank you for making change with us, The Truth Telling Team
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