Over the course of five lessons, students will read, analyze, and gain a clear understanding of the speech Frederick Douglass delivered on July 5, 1852, in which he asked, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” The first four lessons require students to read excerpts from the speech “like a detective.” Through summary organizers, practice, and discussion, they will master 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. What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? " [1][2] was a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. [3] In the address, Douglass states that positive statements about perceived American values, such as liberty, citizenship, and 42. 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 cruelly to which he is the constant victim. What arguments and rhetorical strategies did Frederick Douglass use to persuade a northern, white audience to oppose slavery and favor abolition? Understanding 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 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. 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? The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history—the very ring---bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny . . . 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. 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. On July 5, 1852, eminent African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a brilliant speech that was a powerful indictment of American slavery and racism. Read the speech as printed within days in his own newspaper. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history—the very ring---bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny . . . 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. Over 200 years after Frederick Douglass questioned “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” in an act of resistance to Independence Day, Black Americans are still grappling with how to 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. Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) was a former slave who became the greatest abolitionist orator of the antebellum period. During the Civil War he worked tirelessly for the emancipation of the four million enslaved African Americans. In the decades after the war, he was the most influential African American leader in the nation. 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. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July, also known as the “Fourth of July Speech” is a public oratory piece Frederick Douglass gave at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York on an invitation by the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society on July 5, 1852, to celebrate 76 years of the American independence. In July of 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech titled “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” a call for the promise of liberty be applied equally to all Americans. Douglass’s speech emphasized that American slavery and American freedom is a shared history and that the actions of ordinary men and women, demanding freedom, transformed our nation. 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 was not a holiday celebrated by slaves, former slaves, or their descendants. 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. . . . What to the American slave is your Fourth of July! 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.
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