Annually on July 4th, many Americans gather together in celebration of our independence from Great Britain. Unfortunately, there are many African Americans in the country that do not feel like they are able to enjoy the Fourth of July holiday as much as white Americans because of all the segregation that occurred back when the Declaration of Independence was made. Frederick Douglas’ “What to a Slave is the Fourth of July” perfectly describes from the point of view of an African American about how blacks are not treated the same and thus cannot thoroughly celebrate “Independence Day”.

On July 5th, 1852 Frederick Douglas addressed the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in New York, and he gave his speech, “What to a Slave is the Fourth of July”. Douglass was born into slavery in the year 1818 and by the age of 20 he escaped and became an avid slavery abolitionist. Throughout his life, Douglass did whatever was possible in order to rid slavery and to free all black people, and for these efforts he was one of the most important African American leaders during the slavery era in the nineteenth century. In Douglass’ speech in New York, his main argument was that Independence Day, while a day of celebration for many white Americans is a day of mourning for black slaves that are living in America. Douglas believes that current and former slaves were treated unfairly and are not able to reap all of the benefits that are put forth in the Declaration of Independence. While Douglas praises the founding fathers for creating such a document and breaking the country away from Britain, he believes that they are now acting like hypocrites, and they are treating the African Americans just like the British treated them.

There are many articles that provide other opinions on the issue of Black Americans and the Fourth of July and Leonard I Sweet’s “The Fourth of July and Black Americans in the Nineteenth Century: Northern Leadership Opinion Within the Context of the Black Experience” provides many examples of how Blacks were mistreated after the passing of the Declaration of Independence. Leonard I Sweet is E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University and he provides many points on several issues such as scholarly, theological, and social aspects of life. He continues to preach his beliefs through the large amount sermons that he has produced over the years and through podcasts and articles all over the internet. Sweet’s article explains how the Fourth of July was one of the most celebrated holidays throughout all of the plantations, and while all of the plantation owners were celebrating their independence they forced all of the slaves to continue working. The beginning of this article has a quote from John Adams that said, “This day will be “the most memorable” in the history of American. It will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.” (Sweet 256), and this is very ironic due to the fact that many African Americans still feel that the Fourth of July is not their holiday to celebrate. Sweet also backs up Douglas’ argument by stating that there were many slaves that felt that they were still being mistreated and that the declaration did not actually grant independence for all people and that there were only a select group of people that were granted all of those freedoms. 

Another article that backs up Douglas’ ideas that the Fourth of July does not mean the same thing to a black man as it does to a white man, is Dr. Matthew Spalding’s “How to Understand Slavery and the American Founding”. Matthew Spalding is the Associate Vice President and Dean of Educational Programs for Hillsdale College in Washington DC, and he oversees the various academic and educational programs at the college. In many of Spalding’s writing he describes the foundations of what America is based off of and how they have been extremely altered by history. This article that Spalding wrote once again described how slaves in America made up about 40 percent of the American population and none of them were granted the same liberties as the rest of the white people that lived in the country. African Americans constantly argued that as slaves they were not granted all of the rights that God had given to all human beings. They attempted to have a rewritten version of the Declaration made up that granted liberties to slaves but that was not passed. These slaves were very mistreated and since they were a part of the country they should’ve not had those inalienable rights taken away from them.

Overall, I believe that Frederick Douglas had a very valid point in his speech, “What to a Slave is the Fourth of July”, in that Americans acted as hypocrites by the way that they treated the slaves that were in the country. Slaves were very mistreated and that initial segregation in our country led to many other racial tensions that eventually contributed to the civil rights movements. If early on Americans gave the slaves the rights that they deserved and let them celebrate the Fourth of July like a true American should, our country would have never had to have gone through those rough civil rights in the 20th century that left a very negative impact on the great country that is the United States.
