Frederick Douglas (1852)
Continuing a long Democracy Now! tradition, we mark Independence Day in the United States by airing the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. The late actor James Earl Jones read the historic address during a performance of Voices of a People’s History of the United States, which was co-edited by Howard Zinn.
“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 he is the constant victim.”
Frederick Douglass’s speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” delivered in 1852, critiques the hypocrisy of celebrating independence while millions remained enslaved. He argues that for enslaved people, the Fourth of July symbolizes injustice and cruelty rather than freedom and celebration.
