A NATIONAL STAND FOR UNITY “WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED”

By Bobby R. Henry, Sr 

A Fourth of July Address

My fellow Americans,

Today, beneath the colors of red, white, and blue, we gather not simply to celebrate a nation’s birthday—we gather to reaffirm our faith in what this nation can yet become.

Today, I hear voices.

I hear the courage of Nat Turner.

I hear the determination of Harriet Tubman.

I hear the wisdom of Frederick Douglass.

I hear the fearless conviction of Fannie Lou Hamer.

I hear the sacrifice of Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore.

I hear the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I hear the uncompromising call for dignity from Malcolm X.

And beyond them, I hear the whispers of millions whose names history never recorded—those who were chained, whipped, sold, lynched, beaten, burned, shot, and buried without justice.

Their blood still cries from this American soil.

Yet their voices do not call us to hatred.

They call us to purpose.

They call us to courage.

They call us to hope.

Frederick Douglass once asked the piercing question, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” He exposed the painful contradiction between liberty proclaimed and liberty denied.

But on this Fourth of July, I rise to declare another truth.

As Black Americans, we have everything to do with the Fourth of July.

America did not happen without us.

Our ancestors did not merely witness this nation’s birth.

They made its birth possible.

They cleared its forests.

They cultivated its fields.

They built its roads.

They laid its railroads.

They raised its cities.

They defended its Constitution.

They fought beneath its flag.

They bled upon foreign battlefields and American soil alike.

They gave everything while receiving far less than they deserved.

This country is not foreign to us.

We are this country.

Our fingerprints are on its foundations.

Our labor built its wealth.

Our faith sustained its promise.

And our blood, our sweat, and our tears are in this very soil.

That blood crossed oceans of time from the shores of Africa.

Those hands that were shackled became the hands that built America.

This earth remembers us, even when history has tried to forget us.

Every brick…

Every bridge…

Every battlefield…

Every courthouse…

Every church…

Every cotton field…

Carries the imprint of our sacrifice.

And because of that…

We refuse to surrender our place in it.

We marched because America was worth saving.

We marched for Trayvon Martin.

We marched for Breonna Taylor.

We marched for George Floyd.

We marched for every child whose name became a hashtag and every mother whose tears never made the evening news.

We marched because every generation has a sacred responsibility to carry freedom farther than the generation before it.

We marched through Birmingham.

We marched through Selma.

We marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge believing that somewhere beyond that bridge was an America worthy of all her people.

We marched against fire hoses.

We marched against police dogs.

We marched against injustice.

But above all…

We marched for human dignity.

Long before we marched with our feet…

We marched with our spirits.

Before there were church organs…

Before there were choirs…

Before there were freedom songs echoing through sanctuaries…

We learned to sing from the very sounds of God’s creation.

From the rhythms of Africa.

From hands striking tightly stretched animal skins across hollowed tree trunks.

From melodies carried on the wind.

Those rhythms crossed the Atlantic.

They survived the Middle Passage.

They became the spirituals sung in cotton fields.

They became the hymns sung in little country churches.

They became the songs sung in jail cells during the Civil Rights Movement.

They became the anthems that carried weary feet over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

And they still sing within us today.

That is why no oppression has ever been able to silence us.

Not slavery.

Not broken promises after Reconstruction.

Not Jim Crow.

Not lynching.

Not segregation.

Not redlining.

Not mass incarceration.

Not voter suppression.

Not medical experimentation upon Black bodies.

Not the attempted erasure of our history.

Not every effort to make us believe we did not belong.

Nothing has stopped us.

Nothing will.

For over 250 years, whenever America called…

We answered.

When freedom needed defenders…

We stood.

When democracy needed believers…

We believed.

When liberty needed protecting…

We fought.

Not because America was perfect…

But because we believed she could become better.

Today, some would have us answer hatred with hatred.

We refuse.

Instead…

We will love the hell out of those who hate us.

Not because hatred deserves our love…

But because our children deserve a better America than the one we inherited.

We will not surrender to division.

We will not surrender to fear.

We will not surrender to despair.

We shall not be moved.

For this land is not foreign to us.

How can we sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land?

Because this is not a foreign land.

This soil has been enriched by our blood.

It has been watered by our tears.

It has been cultivated by our labor.

It has been redeemed by our faith.

Its roots run through our DNA.

And that which is deeply rooted cannot be uprooted.

So today we celebrate—not because every promise has been fulfilled—but because hope has never abandoned s.

We celebrate resilience.

We celebrate survival.

We celebrate possibility.

We celebrate the God who carried us through slavery, through segregation, through injustice, and still carries us today.

We celebrate the ancestors who refused to surrender.

And we celebrate the children who will inherit what we continue to build.

To those who would divide us…

Hear us clearly.

We shall not be moved.

We shall not surrender.

We shall not bow.

We shall not disappear.

Because this nation has been shaped by our hands…

Strengthened by our labor…

Protected by our courage…

Enriched by our culture…

And redeemed by our faith.

We have earned the right not merely to participate in America’s story…

But to help write its next chapter.

So let every family standing before their home…

Let every child waving an American flag…

Let every elder remembering yesterday’s sacrifices…

Declare with one voice:

America did not happen without us.

We helped build it.

We continue to defend it.

Our legacy continues to shape it.

And because we believe in what America can become…

We will never abandon her.

We will never stop believing in her.

We will never stop fighting for her.

For my children…

For my grandchildren…

For my great-grandchildren…

And for generations yet unborn…

Remember this:

The blood that flowed through the veins of our African ancestors is the very blood that nourished America’s freedom.

Our sweat watered this soil.

Our tears sanctified it.

Our labor built it.

Our faith redeemed it.

We are not strangers to this land.

We are among its founders.

We are among its defenders.

We are among its enduring hope.

So when they ask us, “What does the Fourth of July mean to you?”

Tell them this:

It means that every lie told to erase us has become the foundation upon which we continue to rise.

It means that every attempt to break us has only made us stronger.

It means that freedom is not a gift that was handed to us—it is an inheritance that we have earned, protected, expanded, and passed from generation to generation.

And so, with faith in God…

With gratitude for our ancestors…

With love for one another…

And with hope for America…

We declare today and forever:

We ain’t going nowhere.

We shall not be moved.

God bless our ancestors.

God bless our children.

And may God continue to bless the United States of America.

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