How this 2,500-year-old Hebrew psalm still resonates with the oppressed

For in the midst of all the injustices that confront us every time we check news headlines, remembering is as crucial as forgiving.

On the anniversary of America’s independence, the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass made a biblical Psalm—Psalm 137—best known for its opening line, “By the rivers of Babylon,” a centerpiece of his most famous speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”