Well before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and well before June 19, 1865, when news of freedom finally reached over 250, 000 Galveston, Texas slaves, Frederick Douglass reflected on the paradoxical nature of the nation’s Fourth of July Independence Day celebrations in his July 5, 1852 speech “What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?” While change has come, there are still battles to be won for equal rights, equal access, and equal protections under the law. For Black people, the words of Frederick Douglass still resonate today. For some, the July Fourth holiday is cause for anticipatory celebration, others choose not to celebrate it at all, while others celebrate the day with some reticence.
–Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher
Frederick Douglass
February 1818 – February 1895
Excerpts of Douglass’s speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5th, 1852
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too not great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. 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. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory….
