Douglass’s 4th of July Speech (1852)

Mon Jul 05, 1852

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On this day in 1852, Frederick Douglass addressed an anti-slavery society, calling July 4th “a day that reveals to [the slave], more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

Douglass delivered the speech, later given the title “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July” in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York, speaking to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. The speech is perhaps the most widely known of all of Frederick Douglass’ writings save his autobiographies.

Here is a brief excerpt:

"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.

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.

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."