Summary Of Frederick Douglass Speech To Celebrate The Fourth Of July

Frederick Douglass was born a slave in 1817, but soon became one of the biggest names in all of history. By 1838, Frederick Douglass was able to escape slavery and go up North. The citizens of Rochester, New York, where Douglass settled in, asked him to give a speech to celebrate the Fourth of July. He agreed, however, instead of his speech being about celebrating freedom, he spoke about all the hypocrisy being held in the United States. The states represented freedom, and independence, yet there were millions of people being forced into a life of hard labor and no pay, slaves. Frederick Douglass was completely correct with the way he delivered his speech.
He began his speech by questioning why he was chosen to give this speech, “Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence?”. He mentions that he for one, is of a different color than the ones who were truly celebrating this occasion, “I am not included within the pale of this
“I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view” (Douglass). Everyone is human, so they should all have the same human rights, but slaves were stripped from them all. Fourth of July was set upon to celebrate the freedom won after the war, yet there were still millions of people who were not free. Frederick Douglass does not believe that he, along with other African Americans, should celebrate Fourth of July because they were not included in the freedom that was won. Douglass simply reminded everyone that just because the Declaration of Independence was signed, there were still slaves in the world. During this time, America was filled with “irony”. Douglass mentions that, “The manhood of the slave is conceded” (Douglass), and it was. The white owners took away the only thing African Americans had left, which was their own