Frederick Douglass Speech On The Fourth Of July Revisited In - NPR The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. The wet plate ambrotype plates are housed in a folding leather case with tooled gilt oval mat. 'Don't get in our way,' Harris urges in speech at Howard University Do you think that section has any lessons for us today? One of his famous speeches, called "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," was given on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, at an event in the Corinthian Hall. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. Many of you understand them better than I do. Noting the rapid changes in transportation and communication he insists that Space is comparatively annihilated. Although it has also facilitated the spread of hateful ideas and untruths, I suspect Douglass, who understood perhaps better than anyone in the 19th century the power of images, would have reveled in our ability to capture and convey video of events. I dont know what kind of person he was or how he thought of himself. In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: God speed the year of jubilee It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. No! For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. What is the main message of Douglass's speech? America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.. Until that year, day, hour, arrive,With head, and heart, and hand Ill strive,To break the rod, and rend the gyve,The spoiler of his prey deprive So witness Heaven!And never from my chosen post,Whateer the peril or the cost. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. What is the main message of Douglass's speech? And never from my chosen post, To man his plundered fights again While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. The headings in brackets have been supplied by the editor to guide your reading as have the questions after each section. God speed the day when human blood Douglass praises and respects the signers of the Declaration of Independence, people who put the interests of a country above their own. Douglass stated that the nation's founders were great men for their ideals of freedom. Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July speech, then and now: A Q&A with Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. Funny you should ask. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? The time was when such could be done. What is the main message of Douglass's speech? I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. Yale historian David Blight analyzes Douglass's speech and discusses its historical context in an episode ofthe podcastBackStory with the American History Guys (scroll down to the episode "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"). Is it at the gateway? What did he say and in what context? Douglasss searing ability to cut through the rhetoric of freedom and democracy lives on in works like these that reveal the enduring cruelty of the exemption as it continues to haunt our flawed legal and punishment systems. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. You may well cherish the memory of such men. ROY: The better we get to know the people that we live with, that we work around, that we see at the coffee shop, and the more we talk about these important racial issues with one another, the easier it will be to heal our divided communities. At the time Douglass spoke, Blight says, the opportunity was ripe for a lecture on the moral crisis. See answers Advertisement bhawsarsakshi4 In some ways, the first part of the speech is a traditional patriotic speech. we wept when we remembered Zion. In every clime be understood, 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. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. What is surprising about this appeal? 11th annual public reading of What to the slave is the Fourth of July? takes place on July 2nd at noon on Boston Common, Photo via the Harvard Gazette David Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School. Douglass printed the speech in his newspaper, Frederick Douglass' Paper, and published 700 copies of it in pamphlet form. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. It occurred to me that it would be of interest to many others if they knew about it. Americans! For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Can you tell me about the origins of the Reading Frederick Douglas Together project? In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the 'lame man leap as an hart. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Must we allow symbols of racism on public land? It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression. Douglass presented this speech to an antislavery societyan audience that was already on his side. Overseers announce new president, vice chair. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. Why is this speech still relevant today? The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. Douglass states, "My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. What is the main message of Douglass's speech? The fight for Why does Douglass appeal to the Constitution in the last section of the speech? Although primarily remembered for pointing out the hypocrisy of Independence Day in a nation that condoned the enslavement of millions of people, the speech also includes an interesting passage on the impact of globalization. Its also an election year; the 1852 presidential election was heating up that summer. In an Independence Day address in 1852, abolitionist movement leader Frederick Douglass famously asked a gathering in Rochester, New York What to the slave is the Fourth of July?Answering his own question, it is a day, he said, that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. Douglass speech laid bare the hypocrisy of American ideals of freedom at a time when millions were living in Constitutionally-sanctioned bondage across the United States. ", Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. We feel the pain and anguish ever more severely and it is much harder to find hope for the future. One of the parts of the speech that resonates with me the most is when Douglass says: What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? For more information on this event visit CharlesHamiltonHouston.org. The Compromise of 1850 had failed to resolve the controversy over the admission of new slaveholding states to the Union. Frederick Douglass's, "What To the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" And wear the yoke of tyranny Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? What is now known as the "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. SOURCE FORMAT: Public speech (excerpt) WORD COUNT: 1,660 words Excerpt from Frederick Douglass's "Fifth of July" Speech (1852). "[L]et me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it.". Douglass made the speech nearly a decade before the American Civil War, a conflict that ultimately led to the adoption of the 13th amendment, which ended slavery. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. Is that a question for Republicans? Douglass continues to interrogate the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, to enslaved African Americans experiencinggrave inequality and injustice: Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" in 1852, drawing parallels between the Revolutionary War and the fight to abolish slavery. I said then and throughout his presidency that rather than freeing us from talking about race, his election freed us to talk about it; and we entitled that first event: Reading Frederick Douglass in the Age of Obama.. What are these? Frederick Douglass, "What the Black Man Wants" Fellow-citizens! What feelings is he appealing to in his audience in this section? Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other.. One person who felt that way was Douglass, the famous abolitionist, who was himself born into slavery. I am not that man. The above audio (11:35) can be used with the following section of Frederick Douglass's speech. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. And the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures, too. He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. But we also need to invest as a city and as a society into reading and learning more about the present realities of oppressed peoples. But its quite another to change the way you see yourself and to grow into a person deeply committed to long-term interracial coalition building. What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? What is the main message of Douglass's speech? I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. O! Wells, which was incorporated into the preface of her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. Frederick Douglass, America's most famous anti-slavery activist and fugitive slave, saw no ground to celebrate: he saw the octopus arms of slavery stretched everywhere, exposing the hollowness. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. Frederick Douglass: Speeches & Writings | Library of America Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Obviously, the speech has taken a much darker meaning in the Age of [President Donald] Trump. Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Read its preamble, consider its purposes. From what point of view does he look at it? What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Space is comparatively annihilated. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. That year will come, and freedoms reign, I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just. Indeed, his speech, which warns that Your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent, should be required reading for any such commission. Douglass continued to add to the speech in the years that followed. GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? Identify these elements. speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. The most famous speech of the orator's career, it marked a departure from his mentor, Boston abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.In it, Douglass expressed his desire to participate in the political life of the nation, while the more radical . I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. Douglass message about America struggling to live up to the lofty goals it set for itself at the founding continues to be relevant, says Blight. Read the address in full onPBS. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! Oh! I generally try to avoid speculating about current or historical figures I dont know. What was the main point of Frederick Douglass speech? Both critiques seek true fidelity to those principles we fail to keep. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? 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! In an 1868 speech, he said, No man should be excluded from the government on the basis of his color, no woman on account of her sex. Frederick Douglas's Speech In What To The Slave Is The | Bartleby Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? David Harris: Douglass was known for his oratory and this speech is no exception. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. Panel on dispossession of African Americans says burying truth keeps Black Americans dispossessed, Legal scholar and historian puts the push to remove Confederate statues in context, Members of the community share memories, plans, hopes for the holiday, Meredith Max Hodges and Geraldine Acua-Sunshine to assume leadership roles for 2023-24, We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term., Happiness is not a destination Happiness is the way, Expanding our understanding of gut feelings, Gen Z, millennials need to be prepared to fight for change, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, Rewriting history to include all of it this time. Frederick Douglass - Narrative, Quotes & Facts | HISTORY A Nation's Story: "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" What is their most significant accomplishment? Douglass's voluminous writings and speeches reveal a man who believed fiercely in the ideals on which America was founded, but understoodwith the scars to prove itthat democracy would . The main message of Douglass's speech is that it is hypocritical to celebrate the Fourth of July as a day of freedom and independence while slaves are not independent nor do they have freedom. It was one of five autobiographies he penned,. He does some of his greatest writing in early 1850s during this terrible personal crisis, Blight says, and right there in the middle of it comes the greatest speech hes ever delivered, of the hundreds of speeches he delivered in his life.. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. There should be no shoulder that does not bear the burden of the government. He had a prophetic vision for the future that he was always trying to work toward. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. 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 denunciation 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. GAZETTE: What is something you have discovered about Douglass while researching this speech and his work more broadly that people might be surprised to learn? On top of his federal work, Douglass kept a vigorous speaking tour schedule. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. And from his prison-house, the thrall On July 4th, 1852, he gave a speech to citizens of the United States. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. He took action to raise the voices of others and to aid their work on the national stage, especially that of two Black women in the last half of the 19th century. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? GAZETTE: This is your second year as host of Reading Frederick Douglass Together in Somerville. Frederick Douglass delivered 'best Fourth of July speech in American The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro - CliffsNotes For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. ROY: Douglass wrote the speech in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which effectively extended the reach of slave power in the South throughout the rest of the country. Cambridge, MA 02138, 2022 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, International Legal Studies & Opportunities, Syllabi, Exam and Course Evaluation Archive, Sign Up for the Harvard Law Today Newsletter, Consumer Information (ABA Required Disclosures). In Douglass' speech, his tone mainly appeals to emotions. They were great men toogreat enough to give fame to a great age. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. I am not that man. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Alison Drasner, the project coordinator for the Somerville Museum, teamed up with Dave Ortega at the Somerville Media Center to prerecord voices of 50 Somerville residents, including my 7-year-old daughter, Charlotte, to read sections of the speech. there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. The message wasnt new Douglass promoted those ideas year-round but Blight says he knew the Fourth of July was a good hook, and expected the speech to be a hit. That day will come all feuds to end. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. It were considered radical, extreme, and risky. Members of the public will take turns reading parts of the speech until theyve read all of it, together. He would use the Fourth of July for its irony over and over and over, just like the Declaration of Independence is used to remind the country of its potential and promise, and to him, race was always the measure of that, he says. Crowd of men and women during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington, D.C., Aug.28, 1963, Get the latest information about timed passes and tips for planning your visit, Search the collection and explore our exhibitions, centers, and digital initiatives, Online resources for educators, students, and families, Engage with us and support the Museum from wherever you are, Find our upcoming and past public and educational programs, Learn more about the Museum and view recent news, National Archives and Records Administration, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. Throughout this speech, as well as his life, Douglass advocated equal justice and rights, as well as citizenship, for blacks.He begins his speech by modestly apologizing for being nervous in front of the crowd and recognizes that he has come a long way since his escape from slavery. Frederick Douglass "What to the Slave" - Lesson Plan | Learning to Why does he do this? The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. At the time of the delivery of this speech, Douglass had been living in Rochester, New York for several years editing a weekly abolitionist newspaper. On July 5, 1875, as Reconstruction brought its own fears, like violence from the Ku Klux Klan, Douglass shifted his speech for the day, asking, If war among the whites brought peace and liberty to the blacks, what will peace among the whites bring? But the 1852 What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? speech remains the best known of his addresses on the occasion, especially as it became even more widely read in the late-20th century, with events like the public readings sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council and a powerful reading by James Earl Jones in 2004. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view," (52-54). Last year, Singapore's GDP grew 3.6%. The wide world oer Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, our economy continues to recover. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address at an Independence Day celebration and asked, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Douglass was a powerful orator, often traveling six months out of the year to give lectures on abolition. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? Why Frederick Douglass Is Important? - FAQS Clear Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I think he would look at the ongoing gulf between our ideals and reality and might refer back to some of his own analysis to understand the current contradictions. Magazines, 4,000 African Americans paraded down Broadway in New York City, Or create a free account to access more articles, 'What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. This power fuels modern abolition movements, whether of human trafficking, prison or police. But such is not the state of the case. I will not. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. Harvard Law Today: Can you tell me a little bit about Douglass speech? Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. My subject, then fellow citizens, says Douglass, is American slavery. He brings that subject to life in vivid and sometimes horrifying terms, Standing, as he says, with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion. The effect is undeniable and its implications inescapable: the contradiction between the celebration and the bondage it masks demands action.