What is the meaning of the 4th of July to Me?
There is a rhetorical question, and there is a personal answer. It is easy for each of us to ask the rhetorical question. The conduct of our daily lives provides the personal answer.

This question has been resonating among Black folks since Frederick Douglass famously asked in 1852, "What to the slave is the 4th of July?"

"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...
"I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this 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 fa thers, 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."

A few years later, in another speech, the "West India Emancipation" speech, he gave a more personal assessment of the meaning of struggle for freedom. In that speech, he challenged his listeners to join the struggle for freedom with these two famous paragraphs:

"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppression and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."

So, For Frederick Douglass, there was a rhetorical question, and there is a personal answer. When we reflect on the progress of our nation, and the current issues of the day facing African Americans, the rhetorical questions remain:
"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...?"

It manifests itself today in slogans like, "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice, No Peace." For some, it feels like the same question that Fredereick Douglass asked, "What to the African American citizen is your 4th of July?"

There is a practical answer to that question also that mirrors the experience of Frederick Douglass for me. Our practical sojourn in this nation is one of strife and struggle. Yet, there is also progress. In so many of our communities, life seems oppressive, but for others, the struggle has unfoldedd just as Frederick Douglass indicated -- "by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."

Yes, we share in this independence that is celebrated on the 4th of July, for we have labored, suffered, sacrificed, and given the lives of our young and old, our best and our brightest, and those brave military verans who have fought in every war from 1776 to the present day. President Barack Obama constantly encourages us to keep fighting to perfect this union. Some of us have enjoyed more of the fruits of our struggle than others.  Many still languish in oppressive conditions. We must not rest until the promise of the Declearation of Independence is a reality for everyone.

I celebrate because this is my country -- where I was born, where I was educated and grew to maturity, where I served in the military to defend its existence, and where I labor every day to make this a better place for my childrena and grandchildren, and all who love the ideals expressed in the Constitution of the Unbited States of America. I am not content with our progress.  I echo  the words of Frederick Douglass. My daily reality is this:
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Happy 4th of July!