Friday, July 03, 2015

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: “The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro” (1852)

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: “The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro” (1852)


 

http://www.racismreview.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/4fred16b.jpgORATION DELIVERED IN CORINTHIAN HALL, ROCHESTER, BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS, JULY 5TH, 1852 to “The Ladies of the "Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing Society"

 

[…]Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?  Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful…

 

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than. all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which lie is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

 

Every year, Masshumanties sponsors an abridged reading of the Douglass speech at our glorious Monument to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment in front of the Statehouse (Don’t ignore the inscription on the back, downhill side!).  The full text of the Douglass address – its very long! – and various edited shorter versions are here

 

DEMOCRACY NOW broadcasts an annual commemoration, including a partial reading by actor/activist James Earl Jones.  (You can also watch a partial reading by actor Morgan Freeman here)

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