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. On July 5, 1852, in . They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass sought not only to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery but also to make abolition more acceptable to Northern whites. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shoutWe have Washington to our father.Alas! Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating . The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. And it also imposed severe penalties on anyone who helped enslaved people to escape. He can bring no witnesses for himself. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. [12], According to the 1850 Census, there were around 3.2 million enslaved persons in the United States. Essentially, Douglass criticizes his audience's pride for a nation that claims to value freedom though it is composed of people who continuously commit atrocities against Blacks. Before you read the speech you can follow these links to learn more about Douglass's life and the evolution of his thought in this period. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. Where these are, man is not sacred. "Meaning of the Fourth of July to a Negro" by Bridget Durham The Fourth of July is a day of celebration for many Americans because on July 4th, 1776, America declared independence from Britain and said that everyone was free under the US government, right? Knowledge is becoming more readily available, Douglass said, and soon the American people will open their eyes to the atrocities they have been inflicting on their fellow Americans. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. R, R. Raymond) on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slaves redemption from his chains.One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. The Oratory of Fr. [5] Many copies of one section of it, beginning in paragraph 32, have been circulated online. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. In his speech, "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery . Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.I was born amid such sights and scenes. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. Must we allow symbols of racism on public land? Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to. Ossie DavisA Voice Ringing O'er the Gale! During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Wells, which was incorporated into the preface of her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.. 15 November's Documents in Detail webinar was about Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, his oration delivered on 5 July 1862. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem the Fugitive Slave Law as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christians God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! So its important that our city and our society are outraged by the recent murders of unarmed black people. What to a Slave is the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass Fredrick speech. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose, a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.Fellow-citizens! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. [5], A statue of Douglass erected in Rochester in 2018 was torn down on July 5, 2020the 168th anniversary of the speech. The founding fathers left black people and women out of these rights for "everyone." The 4th of July Address, delivered in Corinthian Hall, by Frederick Douglass, is published on good paper, and makes a neat pamphlet of forty pages. It is neither. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. Follow the drove to New Orleans. The well-known speech was previously known as The Meaning of July the Fourth for the Negro. Later, the speech was re-titled based on Douglasss question, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?. [20]:345He also attempts to demonstrate the irony of their inability to sympathize with the Black people they oppressed in cruel ways that the forefathers they valorized never experienced. Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass In the end, Douglass wants to keep his hope and faith in humanity high. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. Douglass argues that religion is the center of the problem but also the main solution to it. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. But now is the time, the important time. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Youll never experience a black hole, but Avi Loeb can help you imagine one, We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term., Level of cannabis use could determine post-op outcomes, Historian says Fla. dispute shows why AP class in African American studies is needed, Why Church Committee alums urged new House panel to avoid partisanship, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, Rewriting history to include all of it this time. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. It is neither. sanction. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Another remarkable thing about Douglass is that he was an early champion of voting rights for women. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July by Frederick Douglass annotation? The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Yea! More than 150 years later, Keidrick Roy, a doctoral student in American Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a U.S. Air Force veteran, will host a virtual community reading and discussion of the storied speech at the Somerville Museum on Thursday as part of the annual state-wide MassHumanities program Reading Frederick Douglass Together.. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. The inaugural meeting between six women took place in Corinthian Hall on August 20. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. 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. Summary: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", otherwise known as "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," Frederick Douglassoutlines a careful argument against the institution of slavery and more specifically the Fugitive Slave Act. Douglass equates this to being worse than many other things that are banned, in particular, books and plays that are banned for infidelity. Frederick Douglass, a well-known Black writer, orator, and abolitionist was asked to address an anti-slavery group on the July 4 holiday in 1852. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act had passed Congress as part of the broader Compromise of 1850. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. What characteristics does he praise about them? The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. I lived on Philpot Street, Fells Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? 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