Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. David Harris: Douglass was known for his oratory and this speech is no exception. That first year, 2009, was also President Obamas first year in office. 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. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. In Douglass's case, he was in a room with people who supported the ending of slavery. We unveiled the first 10 members of the FD200 today, on the 166th anniversary of Douglasss speech. This year we mark both the 400th anniversary of the arrival of captive Africans to the British colonies and the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Is that a question for Republicans? I am also hosting a summer reading and discussion series called Race, Fragility, and Anti-Racism through the Somerville Museum and the City on a Hill network of local churches. God speed the hour, the glorious hour,When none on earthShall exercise a lordly power,Nor in a tyrants presence cower;But all to manhoods stature tower,By equal birth!That hour will come, to each, to all,And from his prison-house, the thrallGo forth. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder, he said. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. When none on earth The Boston communal reading of What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? will take place on Tuesday, July 2 at noon on the Boston Common at the State House, Shaw-MA 54th Memorial. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Tucker Carlson's vulgar language in texts contributed to Fox News One person who felt that way was Douglass, the famous abolitionist, who was himself born into slavery. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. 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? Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. When from their galling chains set free, Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? At the time Douglass spoke, Blight says, the opportunity was ripe for a lecture on the moral crisis. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. Members of the public will take turns reading parts of the speech until theyve read all of it, together. What, then, remains to be argued? . A Brief History of the S'more, America's Favorite Campfire Snack, The 25 Defining Works of the Black Renaissance. 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!" We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake., Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. 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. [Throughout the speech] Douglass looks at the contradictions between the reality of slavery and the lofty claims of a just society outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. What is their most significant accomplishment? 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! They are not part of the original. To what other elements in the American political tradition does he appeal? ", Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. Obviously, the speech has taken a much darker meaning in the Age of [President Donald] Trump. 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. Douglass' 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, described his time as an enslaved worker in Maryland. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? 838 Words. We feel the pain and anguish ever more severely and it is much harder to find hope for the future. Our ability to communicate has led to much greater organizing and mobilization. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. Like brutes no more. 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. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. 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.. Frederick Douglass - Narrative, Quotes & Facts | HISTORY Frederick Douglass, "What the Black Man Wants" And that is one of the truly special elements, the combination of a core group of readers and the accidental attendees who happen by and hear bits and pieces of this incredible speech. There is blasphemy in the thought. Funny you should ask. Politics latest updates: NHS 'on the brink' says nursing union; 10% For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Hisspeech, given at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was held at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! However, this was not the purpose of Douglass's speech. On July 2nd, people from across Massachusetts will gather at noon on Boston Common near the State House for the 11th annual public reading of Douglasss historic address. American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, circa 1855. And each return for evil, good, Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. 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. or is it in the temple? I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. The Nativist party is rising. "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God." The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. For decades, slaves fled the South . What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? 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. They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. What will this years event be like? But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. Space is comparatively annihilated. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. Overseers announce new president, vice chair. So, all these years later, our massive system of incarceration echoes Douglasss charge that, There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. This is not to say there are not tyrannical regimes elsewhere in the world or that other nations do not abuse human rights, but it is the self-righteousness of our celebration in the midst of ongoing injustice that continues to resonate today. Chan School of Public Health celebrates opening of $25M Thich Nhat Hanh Center for research, approaches to mindfulness, Women who suppressed emotions had less diverse microbiomes in study that also found specific bacterial link to happiness, Tenn. lawmaker Justin Pearson, Parkland survivor David Hogg 23 talk about tighter gun control, GOP attempts to restrict voting rights, importance of local politics, Dangers involved in rise of neurotechnology that allows for tracking of thoughts, feelings examined at webinar, 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, By Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite Harvard Staff Writer, 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 attended in 2008 and was deeply moved by the experience. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. We have a precise date for that first, momentous vote, which set the pattern of exclusion with which we still live, but no such precision marks the arrival of 50 captive Africans sometime in August, 1619. Why Frederick Douglass Is Important? - FAQS Clear Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. In the second part of the speech, Douglass turns to the present and his own feelings about the 4th of July celebration. Well, we have all come to understand that while on its face this amendment appeared to outlaw forever slavery and involuntary servitude, its exception for those serving a punishment for crime left open the door for what Douglas Blackmon has called Slavery by Another Name and Ana DuVernays so painfully rendered film, 13th, revealed as continued oppression in the 21st century. "My subject, then fellow citizens," says Douglass, "is American slavery ." Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Frederick Douglas's Speech In What To The Slave Is The | Bartleby This Fourth July is yours, not mine. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? You may rejoice, I must mourn. He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at lengthnor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. So its important that our city and our society are outraged by the recent murders of unarmed black people. Neither group had any idea what would be going on when they happened by and I was truly heartened that both groups seemed to be intrigued and listening closely. (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. Fellow-citizens! It gave me such a surge of hope that the event could bring together such divergent groups. A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nations bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! 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. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! No! As with rivers so with nations. As I mentioned earlier, the first reading was designed to the think about race in the Age of Obama. I remember that first year, looking out at the crowd I was filled with the kind of hope Douglass expressed at the end of his speech. Why is this speech still relevant today? Interview was lightly edited for clarity and length. Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com. 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.
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