what the fourth of july means to a slave summary gel nail designs for 4th of july

Douglass's central goal in What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? is to unveil American hypocrisy in its ongoing participation in an internal slave trade. In the speech, he praises both the founding fathers of the United States and Christian ideology to which many Americans subscribed. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. . . . I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The audience must fulfill what the founders of the country advocated. To the slave, Douglass tells the audience, "your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license [for enslaving blacks] . . . your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." On Monday, July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech to the “ Ladies of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing Society, ” which arguably became his most famous public oration. Rather than a celebration of the Independence Day holiday, Douglass asked an obvious, simple and damning question: What, to the slave, is the Fourth of July? Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” is a deeply moving and extraordinarily impactful speech that transcends time. In it, Douglass artfully captures the contradictions inherent in a nation that professes freedom while allowing millions to suffer in bondage. To some, celebrations of American independence on July 4 are a reminder of the country’s hypocrisy on the matter of freedom, as slavery played a key role in the nation’s history; even today, In the 1850s abolition was not a widely embraced movement in the United States. It was considered radical, extreme, and dangerous. In “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass sought not only to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery but also to make abolition more acceptable to Northern whites. Douglass discusses the Fourth of July, which he describes as the American people’s anniversary of political freedom, comparing it to Passover for the Jewish people. He also discusses how the nation’s birthday is a reminder that it is still young: only 76 years old, which Douglass describes as the “period of childhood” for a nation. Douglass delivered this speech to the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, New York on the meaning and significance of the Fourth of July to the slave. Speaking on July 5, the day after Independence Day (something Douglass had insisted upon), and before a predominantly white audience, Douglass eloquently explained why the Fourth of July What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. In “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” otherwise known as “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” Frederick Douglass outlines a careful argument against the institution of slavery and more specifically the Fugitive Slave Act. Douglass returns to assessing the Fourth of July from the slave’s point of view. To the slave, he explains, the Fourth of July is an insult that reveals to him just how much freedom he lacks. The Fourth of July’s jubilant celebrations are a mere smokescreen for the true brutality of America, which allows slavery to continue. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address at an Independence Day celebration and asked, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Douglass was a powerful orator, often traveling six months out of the year to give lectures on abolition. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Summary. Douglass opens his speech by introducing himself to the crowd and discussing the Fourth of July. He describes the holiday as the anniversary of America’s freedom and reflects on how the country’s young age means that it still has the potential to either become a great nation or wither away. “What to the Slave Is the Fourth July?” by Frederick Douglass is not only a brilliant work of oratory. It speaks to our every frustration spurred by the gap between the ideals of the United Fourth of July to the American black man is “a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.” The speech exposes the hypocrisy of the white Americans where their beliefs fail to align with their actions. Sweet, Leonard I. (July 1976). "The Fourth of July and Black Americans in the Nineteenth Century: Northern Leadership Opinion Within the Context of the Black Experience". The Journal of Negro History. 61 (3): 256– 275. doi:10.2307/2717253. JSTOR 2717253. Wiecek, William M. (1977). The Sources of Anti-Slavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760 What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. . . . I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. This Fourth July 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 anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. In July 2021, shortly before the speech’s 169th anniversary and a year after the summer 2020 protests against anti-Black police brutality, NPR invited five of Frederick Douglass’s descendants to read excerpts from “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

what the fourth of july means to a slave summary gel nail designs for 4th of july
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