Listen to Performances of Frederick Douglass's "4th of July" Speech (1818-1895)

From The Washington Post:

Why an 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass should be taught to students today

“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” offers a window into slavery and the experiences of black Americans.

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American Experience tells the story of how Douglass, Garrison and their abolitionist allies Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and Angelina Grimke turned a despised fringe movement against chattel slavery into a force that literally changed the nation.
On Wikipedia

From The Washington Post
Interesting to note the passages (and the remixing or resequencing of the passages)
from the "What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?"


Youtube: "Actor Danny Glover reads abolitionist Frederick Douglass's "Fourth of July Speech, 1852" on October 5, 2005 in Los Angeles, California. Part of a reading from Voices of a People's History of the United States (Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.)"



Youtube - from US National Archives - July 3, 2017
"In a July 5, 1852, speech to a group of abolitionists, Frederick Douglass reminded them that for slaves and former slaves, the Declaration of Independence represented the unfulfilled promise of liberty for all. Phil Darius Wallace will give a dramatic reading of excerpts from the speech, followed by a discussion with Nathan Johnson, Supervisory Park Ranger at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, and Robert S. Levine, author of The Lives of Frederick Douglass."


Youtube: "James Earl Jones reads excerpts from Frederick Douglass' speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" (July 5, 1852). --DemocracyNow: July 5, 2004. It is a dramatic reading from excerpts of Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States""

More on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas: