For Business Changemakers, the Time for Action Is Now

Malia Lazu

A couple of centuries ago Fredrick Douglass was invited to speak for a Fourth of July celebration in Rochester, New York organized by the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. One of the most famous Americans of his time, never mind a self-liberated enslaved person and brilliant orator, he knew this occasion needed a speech that did not thank white Americans for what little they had done for Black people, but which drew a picture of how enslaved Americans think about this country and its celebration of independence.

As someone who is often asked to speak at celebrations, trying to find a balance between the audience and your humanity takes intention and an ability to speak truth to power. Douglass found that balance in his first few lines of a speech that’s famous today as “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

“The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable – and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight…This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birthday of your national independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day…,” Douglass said.

This opening reminded his audience the work and oppression he had to overcome to stand at the podium, and then reminded the audience of their experience of that day. He was being clear to not include himself in the celebrations, understanding that he and others were not seen as fully human.

The speech starts to close by calling out the hypocrisy: “Americans! Your Republican politics, not less than your Republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of 3 millions of your countrymen.”

A Day of Mixed Emotions

I read this speech every Fourth of July because it honors the bipolar feeling I get when celebrating the day as a Black female American.

I have always loved the 4th of July – my grandpa was a total history buff and we would hang the American flag and go to hear the reading of the Declaration of Independence before the family barbecue. As I found my own political and historical understanding, I would continue the tradition to honor my grandfather more than my country.

Today I read this speech and felt a sense of foreboding, fearing our rush towards a new  Jim Crow and a country that may look and feel familiar to Douglass if he were to come here almost a century later.

My thoughts wandered to the Fearless Fund, a charity set up to support Black women entrepreneurs being targeted and attacked by the racism reawakened by the “anti-woke” movement. I think of the history standards the Florida Board of Education adopted last year teaching that slavery had “personal benefits” for Black people.

Hope for the Future

The older I get and the more I see how American capitalism strangles our democracy, it gets harder to celebrate American aspirations. A growing wealth gap, a xenophobia so strong many Americans are willing to take a weaker economy over a diverse society. The Fourth of July gets harder to celebrate in the face of hypocrisy so pronounced. But if the hypocrisy could be ignored when Black people were slaves, surely we can ignore it now.

After the recent presidential debate, the unfortunate authoritarian actions against college protests and seeing Supreme Court justices continue to pimp themselves out to billionaires, this Fourth will be a somber one. I will mourn the death of our democratic experiment and pray for young people to reclaim this country and create a new definition of America, one that is honest about our success and restorative about our past.

But for those in business who want to make a difference, now is the time to stick your head neck out. Push for a product or service that can attract diverse customers. Try to repair the hypocrisy in your industry. Just do it.

Frederick ended his speech with a similar hope: “God speed the hour, the glorious hour, when none on earth shall exercise a lordly power, Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower; But all to manhood’s stature tower, By equal birth! That hour will come, to each, to all, and from his prison-house, the thrall go forth.”

Malia Lazu is a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, CEO of The Lazu Group, former Eastern Massachusetts regional president and chief experience and culture officer at Berkshire Bank and the author of “From Intention to Impact: A Practical Guide to Diversity.”