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