Douglass, an abolitionist who fought for social reform in the 1800s, shipped the speech on July 5, 1852 at an Independence Day celebration, pointing out the hypocrisy in the holiday getaway and in the Founding Fathers’ beliefs.
“The U.S. celebrates this Independence Working day amid nationwide protests and calls for systemic reforms,” NPR mentioned in the description of the movie. “In this brief movie, 5 youthful descendants of Frederick Douglass read and react to excerpts of his well known speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” which asks all of us to think about America’s very long record of denying equivalent rights to Black Americans.”
In his speech, Douglass claims: “The wealthy inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought everyday living and therapeutic to you, has introduced stripes and dying to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You might rejoice, I have to mourn.”
That section is also read through in the 7-minute video by NPR.
It continues, both equally by Douglass in 1852 and by his descendants in the online video, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I solution: a day that reveals to him, far 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 vainness your seems 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.”
Soon after reciting excerpts, his descendants responded to what they’d read.
“This speech was composed just about 170 a long time ago, but this part of it is however exceptionally related, especially with present day protests,” reported Douglass Washington Morris II.
“Even though the Fourth of July in all probability does not come to feel the similar to me as it does to other individuals, I wouldn’t say that it has no indicating mainly because it is the time when The us as a state turned free of charge from another state,” mentioned Alexa Anne Watson. “But I would say it truly is not the time in which I received my flexibility.”
Isidore Dharma Douglass Skinner closes out the video on an optimistic observe, indicating: “I assume in numerous strategies we are continue to slaves to the idea that it will in no way get greater, but I assume that there is hope and I feel that it’s vital that we celebrate Black pleasure and Black lifetime and we recall that adjust is doable, alter is possible and that there is certainly hope.”
