07/05/2020
“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 imprudence;
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 could 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!”
- Frederick Douglass
“What to the Slave Is The Fourth of July”
(speech)
Corinthian Hall
Rochester, New York
(The Signing of the Declaration of Independence Commemoration)
July 5, 1852
