Frederick Douglass had nothing but scorn for July Fourth. The Black abolitionist spoke for the ensla
Frederick Douglass had nothing but scorn for July Fourth. The Black abolitionist spoke for the enslaved.
‘What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?’ Douglass demanded in 1852
Frederick Douglass circa 1852, when he was in his mid-30s. (Samuel J. Miller/Art Institute of Chicago)
By
Gillian Brockell
July 4, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. CDT
“The papers and placards say that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration.”
So began Frederick Douglass on the platform of Corinthian Hall in Rochester, N.Y. It was a Monday, the day after the Fourth of July in 1852, and he was speaking to a packed room of 500 to 600 people hosted by the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass was about 35 years old (he never knew his actual birth date) and had escaped enslavement in Maryland 14 years earlier.
Although by this time he was world-renowned for his speeches, he began modestly, reminding the crowd that he had begun his life enslaved and had no formal education.
“With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together,” he began, “and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.”
Over the next hour and a half, Douglass made what is now thought to be among the finest speeches ever delivered: “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” He quoted Shakespeare, Longfellow, Jefferson and the Old Testament. He certainly bellowed in moments, exclaiming and anguishing in others. He painted vivid pictures of exalted patriots and the wretched of the earth.
...
“The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?”
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/07/04/frederick-douglass-july-4th-slavery/
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