What’s the 4th to a Black Bostonian?

18 hours ago
5 min read

This July, as the United States of America's semiquincentennial passes us by, what strikes us most is the tepidity and temerity of celebration. Two-hundred-and-fifty years of the republic leaves us as practitioners of economic democracy, and many more witnesses, citizens, inhabitants, with more questions than answers. What does all of this mean, in the "Cradle of Liberty," to a Black Bostonian? Writer, rapper, and educator Paul Willis (@paulwillishiphop) digs in below.

Every Fourth of July, Boston transforms itself into America's favorite history lesson. Fireworks erupt over the Charles River. The Boston Pops perform patriotic classics. Tourists crowd the Freedom Trail to celebrate the birthplace of the American Revolution and the promise of liberty. This year, in particular, the number of people in Boston has multiplied because of events like the World Cup and Sail Boston, but will Boston’s worldly visitors experience what Black Bostonians experience this 4th of July weekend?

In neighborhoods throughout the city in the week leading up to the 4th of July, the Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) invited Boston’s artists and residents to write breakup letters to America, but perhaps the first letter should have been addressed much closer to home. Because before America can honestly celebrate its promise, Boston must first confront its own relationship with Black communities.

For many of us, Independence Day has always carried a more complicated meaning—one that echoes the timeless question posed by Frederick Douglass in his 1852 speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Douglass, with devastating clarity, proffered: "This Fourth of July is yours, not mine." More than 170 years later, his words continue to challenge a city that celebrates its revolutionary legacy while often failing to confront its ongoing inequities.

The city proudly brands itself as the “Cradle of Liberty,” and it is far less eager to examine its legacy of racial segregation, educational inequality, cultural gatekeeping, wealth disparities, and the systematic exclusion of Black communities from the very prosperity it celebrates. These contradictions have existed since emancipation, and they haven't disappeared. They've simply evolved. Black culture is welcomed. Black communities remain negotiable.

Consider the excitement surrounding the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The United States, Canada, and Mexico welcomed the world's biggest sporting event, and Boston is eager to showcase itself as an international destination. Political leaders promised billions of dollars of revenue from tourism and global exposure, which would lead to economic development in our city. Hotels, developers, sponsors, and major institutions capitalized on the moment. But who else will? Have Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan’s Black-owned businesses, artists, musicians, media companies, and entrepreneurs—with decades of experience building our city's cultural identity without comparable institutional investment—shared meaningfully in that prosperity?

Look at Boston’s Black music and culture! It is one of the most influential cultural exports in the world, and has been for decades. The disco queen Donna Summer got her big break in Europe before being recognized here in the United States; New Edition broke internationally not long after, followed by Hip-Hop legend Ed O.G. closing out the long 1980s.The Floor Lords, break-dancing pioneers from Dorchester and Mattapan, were excited about their crew leader Alex Diaz (aka B-Boy El Nino) making it onto the US national break-dancing team and very nearly making it to the 2024 Olympics. Marie Antoinette Wright, aka “Free,” raised a generation of millennials on BET’s 106 and Park, and brought Boston’s creative culture to living rooms around the United States and across the globe. Yet many of the Black artists, educators, organizers, and cultural institutions responsible for creating and sustaining that culture continue to fight for basic access to funding, ownership, media coverage, and decision-making power in Boston. The culture is profitable. The people remain underinvested.

Has diversity once again become the backdrop for someone else's economic benefit?

Boston has become remarkably skilled at monetizing multiculturalism while hesitating to redistribute opportunity. The same contradictions appear as Sail Boston commemorates America's 250th anniversary. Tall ships filled Boston Harbor. Patriotic ceremonies celebrated the nation's founding. America once again tells itself a story about freedom, courage, and democracy. Yet national spectacles often rely on selective memory. They celebrate symbols while avoiding accountability. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Port of Boston became, “a major site of trafficking and suffering where at least 2,400 kidnapped people arrived directly from Africa,” and many Bostonians (including Harvard professors) profited from kidnapping and enslaving Africans. National pageantry may inspire civic pride, but it cannot substitute for an honest reckoning with the people who have been excluded from the promises those celebrations represent.

Boston knows how to produce celebrations. The harder question is whether it knows how to produce justice.

Sports offer another revealing example. Less than two years after Jaylen Brown stood at the center of Boston's championship parade as NBA Finals MVP, he became another asset to be reallocated when the Celtics traded him to Philadelphia. Whether one agrees with the basketball logic of the deal is beside the point. Brown became one of the city's most recognizable ambassadors, not only through his performance on the court, but through his advocacy for education, racial equity, and community investment. Boston’s professional sports remind us that public affection in this city is often conditional. Much of Boston's national reputation around race has been shaped by decades of highly publicized experiences recounted by Black athletes, including those who play for the home team. Black athletes are celebrated, marketed, and embraced while they generate wins and revenue. But Black athletes’ experiences, from Bill Russell to Jaylen Brown, prove that when organizational priorities shift, transactional relationships are let go in favor of larger profit margins. Boston celebrates Black excellence with banners, billboards, championship parades, and marketing campaigns. But celebration is not the same as commitment. Whether we're talking about Black artists, Black neighborhoods, Black-owned businesses, or Black athletes, recognition often lasts only as long as it aligns with institutional interests. Once the interest changes, the rhetoric changes, and the relationship and level of commitment changes.

Boston has an investment problem. It has a distribution problem. It has a power-sharing problem. Frederick Douglass wasn't asking whether America celebrated freedom. He was asking who freedom was actually for. That question still demands an answer.

As Boston hosts the FIFA World Cup, commemorates America's 250th birthday, and continues promoting itself as one of the nation's premier cultural capitals, another set of questions deserve equal attention:

Does Boston love Black people? Or does it love Black culture?

Does it invest in Black communities? Or merely profit from them?

Until our relationship with this city moves beyond symbolism and economic convenience toward shared ownership, equitable investment, and genuine accountability, Frederick Douglass' challenge will continue to echo every Fourth of July as an unfinished indictment of the present.

Paul Willis (he/him) is a Boston-based Hip Hop Teaching Artist, author, and cultural worker whose practice centers leadership, liberation, and creative healing through Hip Hop culture. Grounded in community-based education and cultural stewardship, Paul’s work bridges Hip Hop with critical consciousness, personal development, and collective power. Paul’s most recent and defining body of work is Hip Hop Leadership: an album, book, and curriculum that articulates the “ABCs of rap” as a framework for self-determination, resilience, and purpose-driven leadership. Whether in classrooms, on stages, or behind the scenes, Paul collaborates with youth, educators, and organizations aligned with his mission, vision, and values - advancing Hip Hop as a living practice for leadership, healing, and cultural integrity. If you're a fan of Black Thought, Talib Kweli, and Common, then you'll enjoy Paul's music and message.

This article was co-published with PTV; find their version of the article here.