Frederick Douglass was a former slave who escaped slavery and became an educated, articulate, outspoken crusader against slavery. After writing a best-selling book about his experiences he became a prominent speaker on the lecture circuit in the North and abroad and was often invited to speak at various political or community events generally hosted by white reform groups.
Read Douglass’s “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? speech and in the reply-box:
- briefly explain the essence of Douglass’s speech (what it was basically about, or what his main point was)
- offer two or three quotes you believe to be most powerful, most telling, or had the most impact (a few words or a sentence per quote, but not a paragraph)
- choose three adjectives you think best capture the essence of the speech and/or his tone
respond to student 1 and student 2 in 4-5 sentences.
student 1
Frederick Douglass delivered a powerful speech that pointed out the hypocrisy of the American people. He used irony to address that they have a celebration of liberty and freedom yet still keep 3 million people are enslaved. He brings up that they are all equal men and can do all the same things. The American people believe that men are entitled to equality and freedom, so he questions why that is not extended to them. Also, he calls out the church for trampling over their biblical and Christian values to allow slavery to exist when it’s something that’s inhumane, therefore not divine. All this he tied together to show why slavery needed to be abolished.
“And let me warn you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation (Babylon) whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin.”
“Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong?”
1. Powerful
2. Outrageous
3. Straightforward
student 2
1. The main point of what Frederick Douglass’s speech is to abolish slavery in the United States.
2. -“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.”. In this first quote I find it to be a strong description on how Douglass felt about the 4th of July and how this day is supposed to be a celebration for the US to declare freedom from UK while he is still considered a slave.
“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 shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; 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 would disgrace a nation of savages.”. This quote goes into detail about how Douglass felt about people celebrating the 4th of July and especially people from the south.
3. ( heartless, ignorant, shameless) I believe these worlds perfectly described how Douglass felt about his stance on slavery
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