INDEPENDENCE DAY

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On July 4th 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech to a White audience. The following is part of that speech:

This is the Fourth of July. It is the birthday of your political freedom. But the blessings you enjoy--justice, liberty, and independence--are not shared by me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.

What to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? It is a day that shows the cruelty he suffers. To him, your holiday is a fake. No other nation does things more shocking or bloody than the United States.

Americans! You boast about your love of liberty. But the political power of the nation helps enslave three million people. You help those who have runaway from Russia. But you hunt, arrest, and kill fugitives from slavery. You say, "All men are created equal." But you hold in bondage one seventh of the American people.

Yet I do not give up on this country. Forces are at work that will bring the downfall of slavery. The end of slavery is certain. Things are changing. No evil can hide itself. With William Lloyd Garrison, I say: God speed the year of jubilee the wide world over!