On July 4, 1852 the good people of Rochester, NY invited abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass to deliver the speech of the day. He spoke to the white audience of "YOUR independence..."
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2/ "Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me."
3/ "The sunlight that brought life & healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This #FourthofJuly 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..."
4/ "...anthems, were inhuman mockery & sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?
My subject, then fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view."
5/ "Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character & conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past..."
6/ "...or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous & revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, & solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God & the crushed & bleeding slave on this occasion..."
7/ "...I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution & the Bible, which are disregarded & trampled upon, dare to call in question & to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command..."
8/ "...everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America! I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will use the severest language I can command."
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