'Give me liberty or give me death' turns 250. Here's what it meant in 1775

The phrase “Give me liberty or give me death!” has survived the centuries like a line in a Shakespeare play.

It’s been expressed by protesters from the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising in China to those who opposed COVID-19 restrictions in the U.S. in 2020.

Malcolm X referenced it in his 1964 “Ballot or the Bullet” speech, demanding equal rights for Black Americans. President Donald Trump quoted it on his Truth Social platform last year, lambasting a judge during his criminal hush money trial.

The phrase was reportedly first used 250 years ago Sunday by lawyer and legislator Patrick Henry to persuade Virginia colonists to prepare for war against an increasingly punitive Great Britain, just weeks before the American Revolution.

The liberty, of course, largely was for white, landowning men, not the people Henry and other founders enslaved. He was demanding a specific kind of freedom from the British Empire. Tensions were coming to a boil, particularly in Massachusetts, where the British replaced elected officials, occupied Boston and shuttered the harbor.

“The entire episode was about helping our brethren in Massachusetts,” said historian John Ragosta, who wrote a book on Henry. “It’s about the community. It’s about the nation. It’s not about, ‘What do I get out of this personally?’”

The printed version of Henry’s speech was about 1,200 words. And yet those seven words have lived on, often contorted to fit a political moment.

“It’s a very malleable phrase,” said Patrick Henry Jolly, a fifth great-grandson of Henry. “It’s something that can be applied to many different circumstances. But I think it’s important that people understand the original context.”

Jolly reenacted Henry’s speech Sunday in the same church where his ancestor delivered it. His presentation and others were part of Virginia's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the nation's birth.

Here's more information on Henry and his speech:

Born to an influential Virginia family in 1736, Henry became a successful trial lawyer in his 20s.

According to the Library of Congress, he once astonished a courtroom with an argument that “man is born with certain inalienable rights,” an idea echoed in the Declaration of Independence.

In 1765, Henry won a seat in Virginia's colonial legislature. He was instrumental in opposing Great Britain's Stamp Act, which levied a direct tax on the American colonies to raise money for Britain.

As tensions increased, many Americans felt like second-class citizens with no representation in parliament, Ragosta said. By the time of Henry's speech, many were thinking: “The king won’t listen to us. They’ve invaded Boston. What should we in Virginia do about that?”

When Henry demanded liberty, he was aware of the contradictions, if not hypocrisy, of the moment.

In a 1773 letter to antislavery Quaker John Alsop, Henry acknowledged that slavery was continuing as "the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty.”

The “lamentable evil” would someday be abolished, he wrote, but apparently not yet.

“I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them,” he wrote. “I will not — I cannot justify it, however culpable my conduct.”

In his 2004 book, “Founding Myths,” historian Ray Raphael wrote “it is highly unlikely” Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Henry did not write down the speech and the version we know today was published 42 years later in an 1817 biography of him. The biographer, attorney William Wirt, pieced together Henry's words from the decades-old recollections of people who were there.

The printed version, Raphael wrote, “reflects the agendas of 19th century nationalists who were fond of romanticizing war.”

But other historians said there is ample evidence Henry uttered those words.

“We have multiple people, years later, saying, ‘I remember like it was yesterday,'" Ragosta said, adding that Thomas Jefferson was one of them.

They recalled Henry lifting a letter opener that looked like a dagger and plunging it under his arm as if into his chest before saying the famous phrase.

“That’s 18th century oratory," Ragosta said. ”It’s very impassioned."

Jon Kukla, another historian who wrote a book on Henry, cited other evidence. Men in Virginia's militias soon embroidered their heavy canvas shirts with “liberty or death.”

The popular 1712 play “Cato” about a Roman senator also contains the line, “It is not now a time to talk of aught, but chains or conquest, liberty or death."

“It would have been part of the literate culture of the age,” Kukla said.

The most immediate impact of Henry's speech was more support for independence and the expansion of Virginia's militias.

In the months afterward, Henry and others also were driven by fears that the British would free enslaved people, Raphael suggests in “Founding Myths."

Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, offered freedom to enslaved people who fought for the British.

But Ragosta said that was not a primary motivation for Henry, who enslaved dozens of people.

“That does move a lot of people off the fence into the patriot column, undoubtedly,” Ragosta said. “But that’s not really what’s going on with the Jeffersons, the Washingtons, the Henrys. They had already been very committed to the patriot movement.”

An estimated 30,000 people escaped Virginia plantations in attempts to reach British lines, according to Simon Schama’s 2005 book, “Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution.”

One was Ralph Henry, who was enslaved by Patrick Henry and evidently took the famous words “very much to heart,” Schama wrote.

Following independence, Henry served as Virginia's governor five times. He also became known as an anti-federalist, opposing ratification of the U.S. Constitution and a strong central government.

But Henry later spoke in support of the founding document at George Washington's urging in 1799, the year Henry died.

“He says, ‘Look, I voted against the Constitution, but we the people voted for it. And so we have to abide by it,’” Ragosta said.

Jolly, Henry's descendant, said most people react positively to his ancestor's famous words and acknowledge their historical significance.

“And there are some people that react thinking that it's a rallying cry for them today to defend their rights — on both sides of the aisle,” Jolly said.

Yet Henry and his contemporaries were careful to distinguish liberty from license, said Kukla, the historian.

“Liberty, as they understood it, was not the freedom to do anything you damn well pleased," Kukla said.

FILE - Sen. George Allen, R-Va., talks with the media as he stands beside a bust of Patrick Henry after Allen adressed the Republican caucus inside the Patrick Henry Building in Richmond, Va., Monday, on March 6, 2006. (AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, Bob Brown, File)

FILE - Virginia Gov.-elect, Bob McDonnell, fourth from left, listens to a speech by Patrick Henry re-enactor, Michael Wells, right, at St.,John's Church in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

FILE - Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, left, listens as historical interpreter Michael Wells delivers the "Liberty or Death" speech as Patrick Henry in St. John's Church, Sunday, April 25, 2010. (AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, P. Kevin Morley, File)

FILE - Visitors line up to enter St. John's Church to hear a re-enactment of Patrick Henry's famous "Liberty or Death" speech, on June 28, 2014, in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, P. Kevin Morley, File)

FILE - Ashland, Va. resident John Wallmeyer portraying parriot and native-son Patrick Henry, marches during the annual 4th of July parade in Ashland, Virginia, on July 4, 2015. (Joe Mahoney/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP, File)

FILE - This is an undated portrait of American patriot Patrick Henry. Henry was born in 1737 in Virginia, where he served as governor from 1776 to 1779 and 1784 to 1786. He contributed to the adoption of the Bill of Rights. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Virginia Gov-elect, Terry McAuliffe, seated center, listens as historical interpreter, Michael Wells, center, re-enacts the speech of Patrick Henry in St. John's church on church Hill in Richmond, Va., Friday, Jan. 10, 2014. McAuliffe is due to be inaugurated as the 72nd Governor of Virginia. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

ISTANBUL (AP) — An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 shook Istanbul and other areas Wednesday, prompting widespread panic and scores of injuries in the Turkish city of 16 million people, though there were no immediate reports of serious damage.

More than 150 people were hospitalized with injuries sustained while trying to jump from buildings, said the governor's office in Istanbul, where residents are on tenterhooks because the city is considered at high risk for a major quake.

The earthquake had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey, with its epicenter about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara.

It was felt in the neighboring provinces of Tekirdag, Yalova, Bursa and Balikesir and in the city of Izmir, some 550 kilometers (340 miles) south of Istanbul. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the earthquake lasted 13 seconds and was followed by more than 50 aftershocks - the strongest measuring 5.9.

The quake started at 12:49 p.m. during a public holiday when many children were out of school and celebrating in the streets of Istanbul. Panicked residents rushed from their homes and buildings into the streets. The disaster and emergency management agency urged people to stay away from buildings.

“Due to panic, 151 of our citizens were injured from jumping from heights,” the Istanbul governor's office said in a statement. “Their treatments are ongoing in hospitals, and they are not in life-threatening condition.”

Many residents flocked to parks, school yards and other open areas to avoid being near buildings in case of collapse or subsequent earthquakes. Some people pitched tents in parks.

"Thank God, there does not seem to be any problems for now," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at an event marking the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day holiday. "May God protect our country and our people from all kinds of calamities, disasters, accidents and troubles.”

Leyla Ucar, a personal trainer, said she was exercising with her student on the 20th floor of a building when they felt intense shaking.

“We shook incredibly. It threw us around, we couldn’t understand what was happening, we didn’t think of an earthquake at first because of the shock of the event,” she said. “It was very scary.”

Senol Sari, 51, told The Associated Press he was with his children in the living room of their third floor apartment when he heard a loud noise and the building started shaking. They fled to a nearby park. “We immediately protected ourselves from the earthquake and waited for it to pass," Sari said. “Of course, we were scared."

They later were able to return home calmly, Sari said, but they remain worried that a bigger quake will some day strike the city. It's "an expected earthquake, our concerns continue," he said.

Cihan Boztepe, 40, was one of many who hurriedly fled to the streets with his family in order to avoid a potential collapse. Boztepe, standing next to his sobbing child, told AP that in 2023 he was living in Batman province, an area close to the southern part of Turkey where major quakes struck at the time, and that Wednesday's tremor felt weaker and that he wasn’t as scared.

“At first we were shaken, then it stopped, then we were shaken again. My children were a little scared, but I wasn’t. We quickly gathered our things and went down to a safe place. If it were up to me, we would have already returned home.”

Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities had not received reports of collapsed buildings. He told HaberTurk television that there had been reports of damage to buildings.

The NTV broadcaster reported that a derelict and abandoned former residential building had collapsed in the historic Fatih district, which houses the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque.

Education Minister Yusuf Tekin announced that schools would be closed on Thursday and Friday in Istanbul.

“In line with the need for a safe space, our school gardens are open to the use of all our citizens,” Tekin said.

Turkey is crossed by two major fault lines, and earthquakes are frequent.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023, and a second powerful tremor hours later, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces, leaving more than 53,000 people dead. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighboring Syria.

Istanbul was not impacted by that earthquake, but the devastation heightened fears of a similar quake, with experts citing the city’s proximity to fault lines.

In a bid to prevent damage from any future quake, the national government and local administrations started urban reconstruction projects to fortify buildings at risk and launched campaigns to demolish buildings at risk of collapse.

On Wednesday, long queues formed at gas stations as residents, planning to leave Istanbul, rushed to fill up their vehicles. Among them was Emre Senkay who said he might leave in the event of a more severe earthquake later in the day.

“My plan is to leave Istanbul if there is a more serious earthquake," he said.

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Robert Badendieck contributed from Canakkale, Turkey.

People gather outdoors following an earthquake shock with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

People gather outdoors following an earthquake shock with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

People gather outdoors following an earthquake shock with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)