Chapter 61: Frederick Douglas delivers his devastating 4th of July address.

Since joining Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist lecture tours in 1843, Douglas has risen to international fame as America’s leading black spokesman. His successful 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave is followed by publishing his own newspaper, North Star, and a shift away from Garrison’s “moral suasion” tactics to Gerrit Smith’s focus on political action.

On July 5, 1852 he addresses an audience of 500 in Rochester celebrating Independence Day. While his speech sums up the despair felt by those enslaved, it ends on a note of hope.

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.

The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your
humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your
moral power abroad: it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation
of religion; it makes your name a hissing and a bye-word to a mocking earth.

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day
presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There
are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery.