The Line Between Independence and Insurrection
Notes from America with Kai Wright
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What to the American Slave Is the Fourth of July
In this speech, which he actually gave on july fifth, its now considered one of the greatest pieces of oratory in american history. So we begin to night's show with an excerpt from the climatic moment of this address. Here's actor john douglas thompson reading frederick douglas's what to the slave is the fourth of july. 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 to day?
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