Offsides Productions

The Upstanders Mindset: The Time to Step Into the Fight for Justice is Now

Released for July 4th weekend, starring Hamilton star Daveed Diggs, and in partnership with the Movement for Black Lives, Offsides Production’s video provocatively explores the question: What does the Fourth of July mean to Black people in America right now? Inspired by Frederick Douglass’s historic speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?,” the video names and reframes America’s claim of “liberty and justice for all.” 

Written by a national collective of Black artists that included Safia Elhillo, Danez Smith, Lauren Whitehead, W. Kamau Bell, Angel Nafis, Idris Goodwin, Pharoahe Monch, Camonghne Felix, and Nate Marshall, the video pairs Diggs’s powerful performance with images that juxtapose America’s ideals of freedom with the realities of police violence, economic exploitation, and public health devastation. 

The video was covered by CBS This Morning, The Hollywood Reporter, LA TImes, NowThis, The Griot, Blavity, and others. Influencers from Ava DuVernay to Madonna shared the video through their social feeds.