Patrick Henry was nobody's fool, and on March 23, 1775, he gave an impassioned speech to the denizens of Virginia, urging them to take up arms and raise a militia in order to face off against our British oppressors. In that historic speech, Patrick Henry, stated these words in reference to what to him was indeed the moment of truth, and thereby the time to stop any equivocation or accommodation to the British: "I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery…" Further, Henry, stated, "…it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope," indicating that those that thought accommodation with England was still possible were sadly mistaken and failing to grasp the truth of the matter. Further to the point, Henry, rightly spoke that in order to know the future, we just need to consider the actions of life under the British in the past, in which the British while preaching reconciliation and patience, but were in reality, bringing across the seas, more troops and quartering these new troops amongst the colonists. Henry correctly saw this as: "…the implements of war and subjugation…" and was not fooled into believing the cooing words of the British, nor their deceit, for their meaningful intent was to bring the colonists to heel. Henry states that the colonists had done everything within their power to entreat the British to show them the consideration and respect due to them as people deserving of representation and justice by the British crown but all to no avail. Henry then urged his fellow Virginians that the only appropriate means to resist the tyranny of the British was to fight, and to fight now, before the odds against the colonists got even worse. Then, in his closing remarks, Henry questioned: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" This, indicating that those that vacillated as to whether to actually fight and to thereby willfully oppose the British had instead made the conscious and cowardly decision that they would rather prefer "safety" and hence a reduced form of life, even to be placed in a form of perpetual servitude to the British crown, rather than to risk it all, so as to have real liberty, and real freedom.
The result of Henry's impassioned speech and the blood, sweat, and tears of those brave colonists that took the fight to the British was ultimately the successful establishment of a new country, a republic, known as the United States of America. But recognize this, as great as Patrick Henry was, and he was a very great man, he also was white, and for the most part, nearly two hundred and fifty years later, those words spoken by Patrick Henry are not the same words that a respectable black man can safely make even today in America. For, in reality, if a noble black man was to raise ruckus in this country, demanding that he and his people have true liberty, true freedom, true opportunity, true justice, and true equality, of which all of these things are in theory his already as Constitutional rights, unfortunately, this black man would as a matter of course, be subject to all sorts of slings and arrows of misfortune, from the ruling elite of this country. For America, loves to talk about fairness and opportunity, loves to talk about how egalitarian that it is, loves to talk about how progressive are its ways, and America can point to all sorts of things that supposedly prove how liberal that it is, but the reality is the reality of the overall present day condition of those that were previously brought to this country against their will as human chattel to be used by the white man as he so willed. Though that has changed, that change is acres and acres short of what it should be, so for a black man, today, right now, to demand his liberty or his death, will find, he won't get his liberty, but he will surely get his death.