Al Sharpton’s 250th

Reverend Al Sharpton’s remarks urging black Americans to eschew the festivities surrounding America’s 250th anniversary threaten to dampen a unifying national commemoration. “That’s not our celebration,” he avers. “You know, it seems crazy for me to have on the birthday hat at your birthday party. That ain’t my party.” The comments arose as top Democrats today flocked to kiss the reverend’s ring at his National Action Network convention.Along with injecting a note of racial acrimony to the celebration of 1776, could Reverend Sharpton be seeking to make his criticism of America’s anniversary a partisan litmus test? Several of the Democrats’ top contenders for the 2028 presidential nomination are appearing at the reverend’s event, including Vice President Harris, Governor Josh Shapiro, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor JB Pritzker, and Governor Andy Beshear.One notable absence in Reverend Sharpton’s roster is Governor Gavin Newsom, who cited a commitment with family. It’s hard to gauge what good that might do him in a party that embraces the reverend. For the moment, though, Mr. Newsom is evading an opportunity akin to what came to be called the “Sister Souljah moment,” in which candidate Bill Clinton famously confronted an activist rapper who spoke of setting aside “a week” to “kill white people.”The Sun is not here to downplay or ignore the history of slavery in our country. The Sun declared against slavery on the fourth day of the paper’s existence — in 1833. Nor is it our intention here to deny the historical context cited by the reverend, though his career has long been marred by stoking racial animus, worst of all in 1991 with the notorious anti-Jewish riots at Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. Neither do we want, though, to deny the progress that’s been made.“They’re going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country July 4th,” is how Reverend Sharpton put it today. Yet he denied it is an occasion for “celebration” among black Americans. “We were slaves then,” he reckons, “and they celebrate us signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776. We were not even emancipated until 1863.” He concluded “I don’t know what everybody’s getting ready for a celebration.”It’s hard to fathom the reverend’s motivation in stoking racial strife over an occasion of which all Americans, including African Americans, can rightly take pride. Black Americans have just as much reason, if not more, to celebrate the creation of their nation and the Declaration of Independence as members of any other ancestry group. Frederick Douglass in a speech in 1852 asserted that despite the iniquities of slavery he drew “encouragement from the Declaration of Independence” and “the great principles it contains.”To suggest otherwise, as Reverend Sharpton does, undermines talk from, say, a top Democratic leader like Congressman Ro Khanna, who argues that “a 2028 contender needs to articulate and run on a new moral vision for America” by “speaking to the Civil Rights tradition and offering a vision rooted in Black history.” That history, at least in our view, is inseparable from the ideals articulated in 1776.President Clinton won two terms in part by offering Democrats, and all Americans, a path away from racial grievance. The first African American president was a Democrat. Will either of them, or other Democrats, confront Reverend Sharpton? In words that still illuminate today’s divisions, Mr. Clinton spoke of our shared history in his first inaugural, averring “there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”This editorial has been expanded to more fully describe Frederick Douglass’s famous speech in 1852 than was done in our bulldog edition.

Al Sharpton’s 250th

Al Sharpton’s 250th

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