It occurred to me that it would be of interest to many others if they knew about it. But such is not the state of the case. To some, celebrations of American independence on July 4 are a reminder of the countrys hypocrisy on the matter of freedom, as slavery played a key role in the nations history; even today, Americas history of racism is still being written, while other forms of modern-day slavery persist in the U.S. and around the world. 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. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? "[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.". The event is co-convened by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, Community Change, Inc., the Museum of African American History (Boston and Nantucket), and MassHumanities. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? He had it printed immediately after delivering it and then went out on the road and sold it for 50 cents a copy or $6 for a hundred. The new rules are part of a government plan to crack . is the popular name of a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on the Fifth of July 1852 in Rochester, N.Y.. God speed the hour, the glorious hour, If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Hard-hit sectors are recovering rapidly - tourism and hospitality establishments are back in business. The Nativist party is rising. And each return for evil, good, We would be well advised to ponder Douglasss speech as we frame this conversation. This is a particularly difficult time for any such return, given the lack of civility and acceptance of intolerance that characterize our public discourse starting with the president. In the orations most famous passages, Douglass discussed what it felt like to see such festivities and to know independence was not a given for people like him: What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. Can you tell me about the origins of the Reading Frederick Douglas Together project? 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 . 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. Be driven. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? 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.. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Why, then, did Douglass speak as harshly as he did? Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. By equal birth! America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. He follows this observation by closing with words from William Lloyd Garrison, suggesting the new reach of the great abolitionist across the ocean as part of a global abolition movement. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. The country was in the midst of crises over fugitive slave rescues in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. You may rejoice, I must mourn. You have already declared it. GAZETTE: This is your second year as host of Reading Frederick Douglass Together in Somerville. In February, Mock announced that the FDFI would undertake the effort to launch the Frederick Douglass Museum Center in a building they are purchasing at 140 East Main St. in Rochester. We were all giddy with the reality of a black president who had been willing to talk about race during the campaign. So while the U.S. tends to go all out celebrating freedom on the Fourth of July, alternate independence commemorations held a day later often draw attention to a different side of that story, with readings of the Frederick Douglass speech best known today as What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. Not least since the racism that made slavery endures. A champion of America's great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation's history and culture. No! Who can reason on such a proposition? Fellow-citizens! The people who came to America were surprised by its history. 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? For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. 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. we wept when we remembered Zion. An edited version of Douglasss speech is provided below. 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. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. A black-and-white photograph of Frederick Douglass wearing a jacket, waistcoat, and bowtie. 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. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. 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. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. AN summary of Themes in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Lived of Frederick Douglass. In some ways, the first part of the speech is a traditional patriotic speech. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? I will not. 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. speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? 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? Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. In every clime be understood, I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. 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. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. 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. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? 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 ciphering, 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 Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men! Must we allow symbols of racism on public land? THAT HOUR WILL, COME, to each, to all, And never from my chosen post, 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!" 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. He begins by praising the young nation and its origins in righteous protest against oppression by a tyrannical monarch. ROY:One of the things that Douglass writings shows us is that he believed in amplifying a variety of voices. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Yea! We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake., Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th of July oration. [Under the Act] it became illegal not to arrest and return runaway slaves. What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? ", Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. Americans! The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. Each foe. Why does he call his own time degenerate? And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: God speed the year of jubilee Within twenty years Douglass was the one of the most famous men in the United Statesauthor of two widely read memoirs and an orator who commanded among the highest speaking fees in the nation. (modern), Frederick Douglas addressing an English audience during his visit to London in 1846., Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, Watch: A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, Oprah Winfrey, Media Mogul and Philanthropist, National Museum of African American History & Culture, A Nation's Story: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?. 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. Butin doing so he brings awareness to the hypocrisy of their ideals by the existence of slavery on American soil. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. "My subject, then fellow citizens," says Douglass, "is American slavery ." 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. He wrote a glowing letter of encouragement to Harriet Tubman, which served as the preface to Sarah Bradfords 1869 biography about Tubmans life. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! The fight for independence was a long, hard battle. GAZETTE: Why is it important to do this kind of community-building work at a local level? A Brief History of the S'more, America's Favorite Campfire Snack, The 25 Defining Works of the Black Renaissance. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. 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.. You have reached your limit of free articles. And change into a faithful friend Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. 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. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. For those who feel that way, July 5 may be an easier day to celebrate: on that day in 1827, 4,000 African Americans paraded down Broadway in New York City to celebrate the end of slavery in their state. 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 . With them, nothing was settled that was not right. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. God speed the day when human blood His friend Julia Griffith, the treasurer of the Rochester group that invited him to give the 1852 speech, was one of the people helping him fund-raise to keep the paper alive. Obviously, the speech has taken a much darker meaning in the Age of [President Donald] Trump. It gave me such a surge of hope that the event could bring together such divergent groups. She can speak not only to Douglass' historical importance but to the urgency and relevancy of his message in today's . This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a byword to a mocking earth. SOURCE FORMAT: Public speech (excerpt) WORD COUNT: 1,660 words Excerpt from Frederick Douglass's "Fifth of July" Speech (1852). It was one of five autobiographies he penned,. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Based on what I know of his writings, however, I think he would have very mixed feelings about the progress we have made. I will not. 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.. Two years before Douglass' famed speech, the U.S. government passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required runaway slaves to be returned to their owners. The time for such argument is passed. 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! Until that year, day, hour, arrive, Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. Whateer the peril or the cost, Convicted terrorists will be banned from taking a leading role in religious services and face more rigorous checks for extremist literature. Understanding contradictions such as this is critical for honest conversation. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Why do you think he delivered the speech on the 5th rather than the 4th of July? Douglass's purpose in writing his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave was to provide a first-hand account of the horrors of slavery and thereby support the. I recall seeing a group of young blonde-haired children standing at the wall overlooking the reading as a group of late adolescents and young men sat on the adjacent steps on a lunch break from their work with YouthBuild. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. And from his prison-house, the thrall Douglass stated that the nation's founders were great men for their ideals of freedom. Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! America has been working to fully live up to the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence ever since the document was printed on July 4, 1776. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view," (52-54). 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. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Its also an election year; the 1852 presidential election was heating up that summer. One person who felt that way was Douglass, the famous abolitionist, who was himself born into slavery. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. 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. Douglass's speech emphasized that American slavery and American freedom is a shared history and that the actions of ordinary men and women, demanding freedom, transformed our nation. The Compromise of 1850 had failed to resolve the controversy over the admission of new slaveholding states to the Union. speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Although the . On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."
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