what is a slave to the forth of July ( Yarisa Figueroa)

What is a slave to the fourth of July?( Frederick Douglass)

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. — The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, 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? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. 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!


This frederick Douglass speech is personally one of my favorite speeches from this powerful man. He made this speech allowing the American people to see that the Forth of july was not a celebrtion for him and all the slaves that were capitive in slavery. he did the speech first congradulating America on the Fourth of  July but got into the indepth of how he sees Independence day.He said that there are problems between us. he siad he isnt included in the celebration that they are celebrating. he siad he doesnt have that justica and healing that they have. he tells them that the sunlight that brings them the healing brings them stripes and death> they never been slaves and they were never beatin but he was. His whole life he was treated unfairly becaus eof the color of his skin in being in slavery . he expresses to them that he is not like them and he cant not celebrate the fourth of july the way they do.