Frederick Douglass’ Descendants Deliver His July 4th Speech Nearly 150 Years Later

Nearly 150 years ago, Frederick Douglass gave a groundbreaking speech, “What is a Slave to the 4th of July?” Now, as the U.S. is in the middle of celebrating this Independence Day, there is a newfound nationwide unrest that calls for systemic reform across the board. Voices have been rising up in the form of protests from every ethnic group with a resounding voice that challenges the system to finally say, “yes, Black Lives do matter.”

Some of these new voices are the descendants of Douglas himself. In this short film above, published by NPR, five young descendants of Frederick Douglass read and respond to excerpts of his famous speech

Here’s an excerpt:

“…Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! 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. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, 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; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just….”

For a full transcript of the speech, click here.