The David Ruggles Center along with massHumanities and Historic Northampton is cosponsoring a public reading of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 historic 4th of July address on Saturday, July 3 at 11AM at Historic Northampton. We will be joining many communities statewide in this reading as part of this annual massHumanities event.

Often now referred to as, “What to the Slave, Is Your 4th of July?” after one of its most resonant passages, Douglass gave this incisive address on July 5, 1852 in Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, in a speech before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society at an event commemorating the Declaration of Independence. Douglass spoke about what the 4th of July meant to enslaved people.

An excerpt:

“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. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”

Historic Northampton is located at 46 Bridge St., Northampton.

This event is free and open to the public.

For more information, please email info@davidrugglescenter.org.