"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?"

When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men were endowed with the rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” he did not have in mind the rights of the hundreds of human beings he enslaved. But the enslaved population of the United States, and the abolitionists who supported them, like Frederick Douglass and John Brown, adopted the American symbols of revolution and freedom in their own fight for liberty.  

Joining me on this episode to discuss the power of symbols like the flag and Independence Day is historian Dr. Matthew Clavin, Professor of History at the University of Houston and author of Symbols of Freedom: Slavery and Resistance Before the Civil War.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is Frederick Douglass’s speech, “What To the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” originally delivered on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, and performed by Chicago actor Anthony C. Brown. The mid-episode music is “Dramatic Atmosphere with Piano and Violin,” by UNIVERSFIELD from Pixabay.

The episode image is: "Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave, on an English platform, denouncing slaveholders and their religious abettors," 1852, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library.

 

Additional Sources:

• “July Fourth used to be a protest holiday for enslaved Americans,” by Matt Clavin, The Washington Post, July 3, 2023.
• “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription,” National Archives.
• “These are the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence,” by Colman Andrews, USA Today, July 3, 2019.
• “Today in History - July 4: Independence Day” Library of Congress.
• “Who Wrote the Declaration of Independence?” by Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, July 2, 2016.
• “Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, ‘Had a Declaration…’ [electronic edition],” Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. 
• “Practical Considerations Founded on the Scriptures: Relative to the Slave Population of South-Carolina,” by Frederick Dalcho, 1823.
• “'What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?': The History of Frederick Douglass' Searing Independence Day Oration,” by Olivia B. Waxman, Time Magazine, Originally published July 3, 2019, Updated June 26, 2020.
• “A Nation's Story: ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’” Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture.
• “Frederick Douglass Knew What False Patriotism Was,” by Esau McCaulley, The New York Times, July 3, 2023.
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