As we approach this Fourth of July, we return—as we must—to the uncompromising words of Frederick Douglass, who in 1852 asked with righteous fire: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” Today, we ask the same question of a Congress that just passed the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”—a grotesque monument to greed, cruelty, and white nationalist delusion.
This bill is not a celebration of freedom. It is a weapon disguised as patriotism.
It trades our basic rights for political ransom:
- Healthcare held hostage for tax breaks.
- Food for poor families exchanged for corporate subsidies.
- Housing sacrificed to the gods of austerity.
- Debt relief transformed into shackles that will burden generations.
- Militarization to seed division and take hostages.
It is not lost on us that the architects of this bill have long sought to destroy the fragile progress won by generations of organizers, movement elders, freedom fighters, and everyday people. From the Reconstruction Amendments to the New Deal, from Civil Rights to COVID-era aid, every step forward has been met by violent backlash. This is that backlash. Again.
This bill—like the Black Codes, like Reaganomics, like the “Contract with America”—is designed not just to roll back rights but to erase the people who fought for them. It is the state-sanctioned return of social death: eviction, hunger, untreated illness, and despair—all legislated into law under the guise of fiscal responsibility and national pride.
But we are not naïve. We know their playbook. We’ve seen it before.
As Fannie Lou Hamer said, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
As Assata Shakur reminded us, “It is our duty to fight for our freedom… It is our duty to win.”
We will fight this bill not with polite appeals to civility, but with the same unrelenting spirit that built every liberation movement this country has ever seen. We will organize, disrupt, educate, and resist. We will build mutual aid networks and protect each other from the fallout. We will name this bill for what it is: a declaration of war on the working class, the poor, the immigrant, the disabled, the houseless, and Black and brown communities.
This July 4th, don’t let the fireworks distract you from the fires being set in our communities. The Big Beautiful Bill is not about independence. It is a burning cross on the front lawn of democracy.
We mourn. We fight. We rise.