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Vol. 40 • No. 23 • Thurs., July 01, 2021 - Wed., July 07, 2021 • An NCON Publication Serving The Milwaukee Area • 75¢
The Fourth of July is a Black American holiday Black Americans have long used the holiday to crusade for equality
By Jonathan Lande
as they broke from British tyranny and launched a new Since the very beginning, nation. black Americans have used the national celebration of As the ink dried on the the country’s independence Declaration of Indepenon July 4 to remind white dence, Adams imagined the Americans that they too de- signing would “be celebratserved freedom and that their ed, by succeeding Generalives also mattered. Celebrat- tions, as the great anniversary ing this tradition of black Festival … [and] Day of Deprotest is essential today as liverance … with Pomp and the nation grapples with po- Parade.” He guessed right. licing, violence and racism in Since then, Americans have the wake of George Floyd’s assembled on the holiday to death. reflect on what it means to be American and to commend The signing of the Dec- the signatories who criticized laration of Independence poor governance and chose in 1776 was itself an act of revolutionary change rather protest. The famed signa- than complacency. tories — Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Black Americans have alAdams and the members ways populated the celebraof the Second Continental tions, using these moments Congress — understood this to reimagine America as a
a political moment to show their fitness for citizenship.
better nation cleansed of slavery and racism. On July 4, 1801, Continental Army veteran and Black luminary Lemuel Haynes spoke of American freedom alongside American slavery. From the pulpit of his Vermont church, he lauded the “generous warriors” of the Revolutionary War yet also observed how Black Americans suffered after having been “subjected to slavery, by cru-
el white oppressors.” In 1827, Black New Yorkers celebrated with renewed enthusiasm, as the state had abolished slavery on the holiday. In Brooklyn, in Manhattan and in Albany, newly freed celebrants took to the streets proclaiming freedom. From that day forward, as historian Shane White discovered, Black Americans began to see the holiday as
July Fourth also became the ideal moment to reshape the nation. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, Black Americans sparsely celebrated the day, as they were routinely shunned or attacked in public, but by the late 1840s, Black abolitionists had developed genius techniques to lampoon and lament American commitments to freedom amid rampant unfreedoms and inequalities. This included celebrating independence. They understood the day of freedom festivals served as the best moment to challenge Americans, especially white Americans, to reflect on subjects too often ignored: slavery and racism. (Continued on page 3)
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ Brewers legend Cecil Cooper throws out first pitch at Brewers' Re-Opening Day
Derek Chauvin is sentenced to 22 and a half years for murder of George Floyd The killing of George Floyd on a Minneapolis corner led to nationwide protests, a reckoning over racial injustice touching on virtually every aspect of American life and, on Friday, June 25, 2021, a substantial prison sentence — 22 and a half years — for the former police officer, Derek Chauvin, who ignored Floyd’s desperate cries for help and pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for what seemed an eternity.
The sentence was less than the 30 years prosecutors had sought, but far more than the penalty that lawyers for Chauvin, 45, had requested: probation and the time he has already spent behind bars. The sentence means the earliest Chauvin could Photo by Yvonne Kemp be eligible for release on paOn Friday, June 25, 2021, The Milwaukee Brewers cel- role, experts said, would be ebrated Re-Opening Day with a number of festivities at in 2035 or 2036, when he is close to 60 years old. American Family Field. There was a Tropical Tailgate, hot dogs for only a dollar thanks to American Family InIn delivering Chauvin’s surance, and ceremonial first pitches from former play- sentence on Friday, Judge Peers Paul Molitor and Cecil Cooper. All this to celebrate ter A. Cahill referred to the the opening of American Family Field to 100 percent “particular cruelty” of the crime, which was captured capacity for Brewers games. Pictured above are Cecil in a widely shared cellphone Cooper with his daughter, Tori Cooper, who had the video, as Chauvin held Floyd honor of singing the National Anthem to start the game down for more than nine minutes in May 2020. Floyd against the Colorado Rockies. An NCON Communications Publication
could be heard crying out vin was facing prison, even more than 20 times that he as they said they believed he deserved a longer term. In could not breathe. the hearing, they described Shortly after reading the their anguish and loss in tearsentence from the bench, ful terms. “Why?” said TerJudge Cahill issued a 22-page rence Floyd, Floyd’s brother. memorandum about his de- “What were you thinking? cision, writing, “Part of the What was going through mission of the Minneapolis your head when you had your Police Department is to give knee on my brother’s neck?” citizens ‘voice and respect.’,” Gianna Floyd, Floyd’s But Chauvin, the judge wrote, had instead “treated 7-year-old daughter, spoke in Mr. Floyd without respect a prerecorded video, answerand denied him the dignity ing questions about her faowed to all human beings ther. Asked what she would and which he certainly would say to her father if she could, have extended to a friend or she said, “It would be I miss you and I love you.” neighbor.” Relatives of Floyd expressed relief that Mr. Chau-
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