In February, Mock announced that the FDFI would undertake the effort to launch the Frederick Douglass Museum Center in a building they are purchasing at 140 East Main St. in Rochester. Why Frederick Douglass Is Important? - FAQS Clear Frederick Douglass, Americas most famous anti-slavery activist and fugitive slave, saw no ground to celebrate: he saw the octopus arms of slavery stretched everywhere, exposing the hollowness of Americas freedom values. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the 'lame man leap as an hart. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. At the time of the delivery of this speech, Douglass had been living in Rochester, New York for several years editing a weekly abolitionist newspaper. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. A Nation's Story: "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? But its quite another to change the way you see yourself and to grow into a person deeply committed to long-term interracial coalition building. In an 1868 speech, he said, No man should be excluded from the government on the basis of his color, no woman on account of her sex. It is, he declares, the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom.. His message was well-received because they believed in what he was standing up for. The audience of Douglass' message were abolitionists, who were white people from the north who did not own slaves and wanted to abolish slavery. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. All Rights Reserved. You have already declared it. Throughout this speech, as well as his life, Douglass advocated equal justice and rights, as well as citizenship, for blacks.He begins his speech by modestly apologizing for being nervous in front of the crowd and recognizes that he has come a long way since his escape from slavery. They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. I hold that every American citizen has a fight to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. I attended in 2008 and was deeply moved by the experience. So while the U.S. tends to go all out celebrating freedom on the Fourth of July, alternate independence commemorations held a day later often draw attention to a different side of that story, with readings of the Frederick Douglass speech best known today as What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. Frederick Douglass "What to the Slave" - Lesson Plan | Learning to He would use the Fourth of July for its irony over and over and over, just like the Declaration of Independence is used to remind the country of its potential and promise, and to him, race was always the measure of that, he says.

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