Photo: Kendall Buhl/WBZ NewsRadio
NEWBURYPORT, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Nearly 200 residents gathered in Newburyport Sunday to listen to an address written by abolitionist and statesman, Frederick Douglass entitled "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July."
As the state prepares for the 250th anniversary of America, organizers of the event say that Douglass's words on inequality are as relevant today as they were 173 years ago. Douglass gave the speech condemning the Fourth of July during a keynote address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in New York on July 5, 1852.
"What it did, as well as anything has ever done, is show the gap between American ideals and the reality," Professor Jason Sokol said.
Considered one of the greatest speeches in American history, Douglass purposely delivered the oration after the holiday to highlight the complex hypocrisy of a day meant to celebrate freedom as African-Americans remained enslaved in the country.
"He refused to give it on the Fourth of July. He didn't feel the holiday was for him or for other Black people in this country," Christian Phil Harbors said.
Douglass escaped enslavement and lived in New Bedford and Lynn with his wife. He wrote his best-selling autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave," in the Bay State. Like the event's eighth year, organizers say the tradition will continue to recognize the past while reckoning with the present circumstances of inequality for Black people in America.
"It still takes Frederick Douglass's words to get down to what the Fourth of July is about independence and the fact that many Americans don't have the same freedoms as we would like," Andrea Igerman said.
WBZ NewsRadio's Kendall Buhl (@WBZKendall) reports.