The Community Reading
“Above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wails of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today, more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them.”
-Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
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- Duration:
- 1 hour, 29 minutes, 50 seconds
A community reading, sponsored by the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Introduction by David Blight.
Although many Americans identify July 4 as their Independence Day, many others look at this date with an entirely different context. In 1852, the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society asked Frederick Douglass to deliver a Fourth of July address. Although he accepted the invitation to speak, he insisted that he deliver his address on July 5: both because this had become regular practice in New York’s Black community, and perhaps in part because slave auctions had often been held on July 4. When making this speech, Douglass even asked his audience, “Do you mean, citizens, to mock me by asking me to speak today?” Today one of Douglass’s most famous addresses, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” challenges audiences to think critically about the meaning of freedom and equality.
In the months and years leading up to July Fourth celebrations in 1852, Americans would have been engaging with difficult, yet critical, conversations about liberty and equality. Abolitionists, who had been fighting to abolish slavery for decades, began to make use of more militant tactics. Free Black communities and their white allies led protests to fight back against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which in many cases utilized force and violence. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s work Uncle Tom’s Cabin, released in March of 1852, sparked national conversation. Voters may have been thinking about the election that would occur in November of 1852.
Frederick Douglass fought not only as an abolitionist, but a suffragist. A public letter written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton was read at Douglass’s Funeral in 1895. Its concluding lines read, “Frederick Douglass is not dead! His grand character will long be an object lesson in our national history; his lofty sentiments of liberty, justice and equality...must influence and inspire many coming generations!” It should be noted that Douglass and Cady-Stanton had a complex relationship – highlighted in their disagreements over the 15th Amendment (for more context, please read the article linked here). The year 2020 holds incredible significance in voting rights history. This year, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 15th Amendment. Both anniversaries remind us that the fight for independence and equality did not end in the 18th century - a theme highlighted in Douglass’ speech.
We thank you for taking the time to watch this community reading of Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
Source: Blight, David. “Chapter 13: By the Rivers of Babylon” of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (Simon & Schuster: New York, 2018).-
Coming Soon...A Community Reading
A short promotional video, produced by the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Former NPS Director Robert Stanton introduces a community reading of Frederick Douglass's speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Coming July 4, 2020 at 11:00am.
- Duration:
- 3 minutes, 6 seconds
Read the speech
River Campus Libraries of the University of Rochester has a digitized version of the speech which you can access by clicking this link.
Meet the Readers
Below you will find a list of our readers in order of appearance. We would like to once again thank all who were willing to participate in this project. It would not have been possible without you!
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| David Blight | Yale University |
| Sylvia Cyrus | Association for the Study of African American Life and History |
| Jewell A. Newton | The African American Museum in Philadelphia |
| Brent Leggs | National Trust for Historic Preservation; African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund |
| Todd L. Sterling | River Road African American Museum |
| Theodore White | National Mall and Memorial Parks |
| Tiya Miles | Harvard University |
| Kathie Marsh | Family Heritage Museum; State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota |
| Jessica Bowes | Fort Stanwix National Monument |
| Jon Meade | Associate Regional Director, Region 1 (Northeast), National Park Service |
| Adam Fracchia | University of Maryland, College Park |
| Steve T. Phan | Civil War Defenses of Washington |
| Susan Tamulevich | Custom House Maritime Museum |
| James Bullock | Fort Mose Historical Society |
| Darion Miller | Lincoln Home National Historic Site |
| Richard Bell | University of Maryland |
| Suhey Ortega | Research Fellow, National Park Service |
| Maurice Imhoff | 102nd USCT Black History Group |
| Catherine Bache | Student, University of Pennsylvania |
| Reggie Chapple | Acting Assistant Director, Parnerships and Civic Engagement, National Park Service |
| Ray Hill | Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area |
| Wes Jackson | Brooklyn Historical Society |
| Chad Hoing | Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site |
| Yvette Madison, Sierra Hill, Icis Donald, Alana Donald, Pastor Ken Arnett | First Cambria AME Zion Church, Johnstown, Pennsylvania |
| David Vela | Deputy Director, Exercising the Authority of the Director, National Park Service |
| Eh Wei | Participant in Spoke'n Revolutions program, Triangle Bikeworks |
| Liza Stearns | National Parks of Boston |
| Lonnie G. Bunch III | Secretary, Smithsonian Institution |
| Elizabeth Rankin-Fulcher | Black Women's Leadership Caucus, Inc. |
| Betty Campbell | John Rankin House Historic Site |
| Merrill Kohlhofer | National Parks of Boston |
| Brittany Webb | Booker T. Washington National Monument |
| Allison Gregory, Jamel Miller, and Rose Archer | Rokeby Museum |
| Fatimah Purvis | Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site |
| Dr. C. James Trotman | Frederick Douglass Institute, West Chester University |
| Amadu Shardow | New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park |
| Rochelle Riley | City of Detroit Arts, Culture, and Entrepreneurship |
| Robert Stanton | Former Director, National Park Service |
| Maria Tinker | Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site |
| Jo Elizabeth Butler | Founder, Ethiopian Children's Appeal |
| Jan da Silva | New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park |
| Karen Jones Meadows | Spiritual & Cultural Liaison |
| Maureen Lavelle | Death Valley National Park |
| Michael Allen | Retired, National Park Service/Allen Consultants |
| Joanna Grace Farmer | Building Community Capacity, LLC. |
| Ellen E. Endslow | Chester County Historic Center West Chester, Pennsylvania |
| Frank Toland | Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site |
| Gerald McWorter (Abdul Alkalimat) | Great-Great Grandson of Frank McWorter, New Philadelphia Association |
| Joseph McGill | Magnolia Plantation and Gardens & Founder, Slave Dwelling Project |
| Ranger Angela Crenshaw | Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park and Visitor Center |
| Claire Schuler | Tuskegee Airman National Historic Site |
| Margarete Schuler | National Park Service Volunteer |
| Rose Fennell | Deputy Regional Director, Region 1 (Northeast), National Park Service |
| Ted Johnson | Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve |
| Benjamin Skolnik | Freedom House Museum, Office of Historic Alexandria |
| Joy Harjo | 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States |
| Sherry Robinson Svekis | Angola Maroon Community Site |
| Liz Hokanson | Manassas National Battlefield Park |
| ER Shipp | Professor, Morgan State University |
| Matthew Pinsker | House Divided Project at Dickinson College |
| Kofi Elijah Whitehead | College Student |
| Karsonya Wise Whitehead | Professor, Radio Host |
| Ruth Bradley | Cayuga County, New York, Historian |
| Amir Elisha Whitehead | High School Senior |
| Denise DeLucia | Women's Rights National Historical Park |
| Nila Curry | Emory Fellowship UMC |
| Ryan O'Connell | George Washington Carver National Monument |
| Ivan Henderson | The African American Museum in Philadelphia |
| Debbie-Ann Paige | Public Historian |
| Eric W. Logan | Mount Hope Cemetery |
| Lisa Stewart Garrison | Willits Book Trust Committee, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting(Society of Friends) |
| Kimberly Szewczyk | Harriet Tubman National Historical Park |
| Kenthedo Robinson | Playwright, Crystal Image Performing Arts Company |
| Professor Vincent Stringer | Open Church of Maryland |
| John McCaskill | Frederick Douglass National Historic Site |
| Lenwood O. Sloan | Commonwealth Monument Project |
| Leroy T. Hopkins Jr. PhD. | African American Historical Society of South Central Pennsylvania |
| Ted Shaw | Professor of Law, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill |
| Leon Wilson | Museum of African American History, Boston & Nantucket |
| Roy E. Finkenbine | University of Detroit Mercy |
| Marvin S. Robinson III | Quindaro Ruins/UGRR Exercise 2021 |
| Amanda Gorman | Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of the United States |