This time of year, we commemorate the famous speech “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” written by Frederick Douglass and delivered in Rochester, NY on July 5, 1852.
In this famous speech, Douglass says:
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, 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 vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, 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. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
You can read the full text of Dougalss’ speech here. Danny Glover read Douglass’ famous speech in 2005 at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles, California, captured in this short video(6:06):
Glover’s reading was part of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove’s book Voices of a People’s History of the United States. More video clips can be found at the Voices of a People’s History website and in the film The People Speak.