Channeling Frederick Douglass on the 4th of July

If we could Zoom to the past, I would send a link to Frederick Douglass. This may be the next best thing.

What follows is a ten minute video that brings to life the greatest speech of one of the greatest orators and leaders in U.S. history. It’s called “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass delivered it to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, on July 5th, 1852.

The most gripping rendition I’ve heard is a recording by the late actor Ossie Davis on Smithsonian Folkways. What follows are excerpts, deconstructed for us in dramatic fashion by Yale history professor David Blight, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, which won a Pulitzer Prize last year.

This is is a tour de force upon a tour de force.

If you prefer listening and not watching …

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