Straighten Your Crown: A Message to Queens on This July 4th

Mary Curry
Jul 4
3 min read

Today, the United States celebrates its independence from British rule. The fireworks are flying, the parades are marching, and the red, white, and blue are waving high. But as Queens, I invite you to pause. Straighten your crown, grab some tea, sit, breathe—and listen.

In 1852, Frederick Douglass was invited to speak at a Fourth of July celebration. He stood before an audience of white abolitionists and posed a question that still echoes through history:

“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

He reminded America that its celebration of liberty was a cruel irony for millions still in chains. He did not mince words. He said:

“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

And yet, from that painful truth, the seeds of transformation began to take root. Black Americans, alongside allies, began pushing for change—through war, through Reconstruction, through resistance.

Over a century later, in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech in Memphis, Tennessee—“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” He too echoed Douglass’s themes:

“All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’”

He called on this nation to honor its promises of freedom, equality, and justice—not selectively, but universally. He spoke of rising up, of organizing, of nonviolent defiance, and of a dream that had not yet been fulfilled.

Common Themes: Then and Now

FREEDOM

Douglass asked, how can the enslaved celebrate freedom that does not belong to them? King echoed: “The cry is always the same: ‘We want to be free.’” Their voices call us to remember that freedom delayed is freedom denied.

JUSTICE

Douglass condemned America’s hypocrisy: “There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States.”King insisted that justice must not be rationed: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

INEQUALITY

Douglass laid it bare: “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence… is shared by you, not by me.”King named the gap plainly: “We are poor. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America.”

THE AMERICAN PROMISE

Douglass demanded: “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?”

King declared: “We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.”

Now What?

Yesterday, the United States watched as our 47th President signed into law H.R.1—the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill.’ Beneath its name lies a brutal reality: the rollback of decades of progress for communities of color, for women, for working families.

This bill—despite its glossy branding—slashes Medicaid, guts SNAP, weakens civil rights protections, and starves education. It erodes access to voting, criminalizes immigration, and defunds diversity initiatives. It robs from the poor to give to the wealthy. It is a reversal cloaked in patriotism.

As BIPOC communities, we are not confused. We’ve read this playbook before. And on this Fourth of July, we call it out.