“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” | National Humanities Center

America in Class Lessons

“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

Advisor: Engell, James (NHC Fellow, 2010–11)

By Schramm, Richard R. (NHC Vice President for Education Programs, 1984–2016)

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 of the wrongfulness of slavery but also to make abolition more acceptable to Northern whites.

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Subjects

History / Literary Criticism / Education Studies / Speeches / Rhetoric / Abolitionism / Slavery / American History / Primary Sources /