what is the main message of douglass's speech?

Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. 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. The fact of slavery ruins the celebrations of the Fourth of July. 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Magazines, Digital On the 2nd of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea [i.e., the idea of total separation of the colonies from the crown] with all the authority of national sanction. What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. 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! All rights reserved. They were great in their day and generation. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. To man his plundered fights again Paul Marcus, then the director of Community Change, and I contacted another colleague, David Tebaldi, then executive director of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities (now MassHumanities) about sponsoring a public reading. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. What is surprising about this appeal? They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. 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. I generally try to avoid speculating about current or historical figures I dont know. 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. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. Not blow for blow; It were considered radical, extreme, and risky. 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. What is the main message of Douglass's speech? During the Civil War he worked tirelessly for the emancipation ofenslaved African Americans and duringthe decades followingthe war, he was arguably the most influential African American leader in the nation. Keidrick Roy, the host of the virtual reading event. I hold that every American citizen has a fight to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. This project began in the library of an organization called Community Change, which was founded by Horace Seldon in 1968 to address the white problem at the root of American inequality revealed by the Kerner Report. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. They that can, may; I cannot. Hard-hit sectors are recovering rapidly - tourism and hospitality establishments are back in business. and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?, I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. Indeed, in one of the most timeless passages in the speech, Douglass insists that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July, adding as if speaking today, 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. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. Douglass continues to interrogate the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, to enslaved African Americans experiencinggrave inequality and injustice: Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? 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. Until that year, day, hour, arrive, But its quite another to change the way you see yourself and to grow into a person deeply committed to long-term interracial coalition building. You have already declared it. Douglass stated that the nation's founders were great men for their ideals of freedom. What is now known as the "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" 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. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let 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. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. Magazines, 4,000 African Americans paraded down Broadway in New York City, Or create a free account to access more articles, 'What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. O! Were not only going to be reading books like White Fragility, and Divided by Faith, but were also going to read and watch a number of speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., and documentaries like 13th and King in the Wilderness, as we try to get at the root of racial division so we can come together to remove it. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. we wept when we remembered Zion. And never from my chosen post, Understanding contradictions such as this is critical for honest conversation. And wear the yoke of tyranny Oh! They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. And the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures, too. Harvard Law School provides unparalleled opportunities to study law with extraordinary colleagues in a rigorous, vibrant, and collaborative environment. But we also need to invest as a city and as a society into reading and learning more about the present realities of oppressed peoples. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart." I dont know what kind of person he was or how he thought of himself. Its also an election year; the 1852 presidential election was heating up that summer. It is, he declares, the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom.. No! Yale historian David Blight analyzes Douglass's speech and discusses its historical context in an episode ofthe podcastBackStory with the American History Guys (scroll down to the episode "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"). That assembly, which represented property-owning men, took place on July 30, 1619. 838 Words. To break the rod, and rend the gyve, To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. 1585 Massachusetts Ave. 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. What did he say and in what context? At the same time, we need to be studying the history of slavery and racism in this country so we can build policies, practices, and procedures that address the present problems with those historical inequities in mind. In an 1868 speech, he said, No man should be excluded from the government on the basis of his color, no woman on account of her sex. 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. Like brutes no more. Of Douglass's many speeches, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" was perhaps one of the most well-known. 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. -douglas was trying to to reach to people who didn't agree with slavery, but never did anything to fight against it How does the struggle for freedom change with history? He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. 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! No! What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? 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 it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. "Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. 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.. speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. He also wrote a letter to Ida B. The purpose of Douglass' message was to inform abolitions of the inhumane treatment of slaves and to continue making progress in freeing slaves. Open Document. 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?. Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? My subject, then fellow citizens, says Douglass, is American slavery. He brings that subject to life in vivid and sometimes horrifying terms, Standing, as he says, with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion. The effect is undeniable and its implications inescapable: the contradiction between the celebration and the bondage it masks demands action. Overseers announce new president, vice chair. The fact of slavery ruins the celebrations of the Fourth of July. They are not part of the original. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. 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. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. 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.
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