“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
— Frederick Douglass (ca. 1818 — 1895), a speech on the twenty-fourth anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. (April 1886)
This year, descendents of Frederick Douglass read his powerful 1852 Independence Day speech “What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?”
Related:
“How Black Lives Matter transformed the Fourth of July,” Peniel Joseph, CNN
“How Black Americans Co-opted the Fourth of July,” Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily
African American Fourth of July
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Shortlink: https://wp.me/p6sb6-v4r
Top image (“Frederick Douglass, July 4, 2020” after an 1856 Ambrotype in the National Portrait Gallery) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Tags: 4th of July, Fourth of July, Frederick Douglass, history, holidays, Independence Day, July 4th, NPR, oratory, race, What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?
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