![]() 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. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. 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. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. 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. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”įellow-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. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. 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. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. ![]() I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. ![]() Read by Ava Yuninger, Music by Ava Yuninger Many historians consider this effort to be Douglass’s finest oration, and arguably one of the most powerful American political speeches ever written.Įxcerpt from Frederick Douglass’s “Fifth of July” Speech (1852). The speech, delivered to a local antislavery women’s group, began with a sympathetic account of the American revolution and its great promise for freedom, but then pivoted to a second half (partially excerpted below) which detailed the gross hypocrisy of American enslavement on the legacy of that freedom struggle. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.įrederick Douglass, delivered this speech, sometimes called, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” or the Fifth of July speech, on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York. For it is not light that is needed, but fire it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. ![]() O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
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