America's 250th birthday must reckon with racism, historian says

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

**Eddie Glaude** (0:25)
It's not creed that secured our salvation. It's blood and soil.
So they double down on the idea that America is a white republic.

**Chris Bentley** (0:36)
Historian Eddie Glaude says celebrating 250 years since the founding of the country also means reckoning with the racism that shadows the nation's anniversaries.
It's Friday, June 19th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley. A little later, we'll speak with a surgeon who remembers chaos at the hospital after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando 10 years ago.

**Joseph Ibrahim** (1:12)
We had one scenario where law enforcement was concerned that there was a second shooter and that they may have gotten into the hospital as a patient. So we were on lockdown.

**Chris Bentley** (1:22)
The legacy of that mass shooting, the second deadliest the country has ever seen, from a doctor who treated the victims, coming up in about 15 minutes.
But first, on this Juneteenth holiday, we're talking to historian Eddie Glaude of Princeton. His new book focuses on what he calls mythologies that America tells itself on big anniversaries, including this one, the 250th anniversary of America. The country has a long history of ignoring or downplaying its racist past, Glaude says. And he sees it continuing today. The White House is requiring Washington's Smithsonian Museums to remove quote, divisive narratives. And the president says the upcoming July 4th celebration on the National Mall will double as a Trump rally.
Scott Tong sat down with Eddie Glaude at WBUR's studios in Boston recently to talk about Glaude's new book, which is called America, USA., How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries.

**Eddie Glaude** (2:31)
Oh, it's such a pleasure to see you and talk with you.

**Scott Tong** (2:34)
I want to talk to you, but first I want to play a little music.

**Eddie Glaude** (2:37)
Sure.

**Scott Tong** (2:56)
Your book published with this original music composition from classical composer, Joel Thompson. In this first section we're listening to, USA reflects the core idea of the book. So as we listen, let me ask you about the main contention you make, that America has a double consciousness. What do you mean?

**Eddie Glaude** (3:12)
Yeah, so you know, in 1903, Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk, and he said that black people see themselves through the eyes of those who despise them.
And he called that double consciousness. But I think the double consciousness that he's describing is actually a consequence of the divided soul of the nation. America imagines itself at once as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic. And you can't hold those two views together without contradiction, without depositing a kind of madness at the heart of the nation. And so what I'm trying to do is to explore this tension, this vexed contradiction that bubbles up with the milestone anniversaries when we have to tell ourselves a story about ourselves.

**Scott Tong** (3:51)
Well, there's the story, kind of America publicly tells itself on July 4th. And then you write about the long history of what often happens on July 5th.
A day historically where African Americans have often, in your words, spoken back. And I want to play a very famous speech from orator, freed slave Frederick Douglass, July 5th, 1852 This is actor Phil and Darius Wallace performing it in 2017 And in that speech, Douglass writes, What to the American slave is your 4th of July?

**SPEAKER_2** (4:25)
I answer, It is a day that reveals to him more than any other day of the year, the gross conduct and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham.

**Scott Tong** (4:40)
1852 What is the long importance of July 5th?

**Eddie Glaude** (4:45)
July 5th was celebrated among Black Americans, like Juneteenth today, because it marked the end of slavery in the state of New York. It was New York Abolition Day.

**Scott Tong** (4:54)
1827

**Eddie Glaude** (4:55)
Exactly. So the point here is that there's been always this alternative commemorative calendar in Black America. As America is celebrating its freedom, purportedly John Adams said to King George, We will not be your Negroes. At the very moment in which he's giving voice to a notion of freedom is based on an intimate understanding of unfreedom. So initially Black folks celebrated January 1st. Why? Because it's January 1st, 1808 It's the end of the transatlantic slave trade. Then we celebrated August 1st, 1834, West Indian Emancipation Day, July 5th, New York Abolition Day, Juneteenth. Now in July 5th of 1852, Douglas is speaking in that moment.