What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?: A Modern Take on Frederick Douglass’s Unfinished Question

What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?: A Modern Take on Frederick Douglass’s Unfinished Question

By - August 4, 2025

By L. Williams | Urban Voices
“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
—Frederick Douglass, 1852

On July 5, 1852, more than 170 years ago, a man who had once been enslaved stood before a hall full of white abolitionists in Rochester, New York. His name was Frederick Douglass, and he had been invited to speak at an Independence Day event. What he delivered was not a tribute—but a reckoning.
Douglass began with courtesy and grace, acknowledging the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers. But then, Douglass’s tone shifted. With clarity and courage, he asked the question that still resonates today: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”
His words, thundered with righteous clarity—and they still do today. He did not wait for the answer. He gave it:
“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.”
Douglass exposed the bitter irony of a nation that celebrated liberty while holding millions in bondage. His words in 1852 were thunderous. In 2025, they are eerily familiar.

A Celebration and a Contradiction
Every year, the Fourth of July rolls around with all its fanfare—flags waving, fireworks bursting, parades marching. But for many Black Americans, this national holiday brings a different emotion: reflection. Reflection on a freedom that was declared but not delivered. On rights that were promised, but never fully extended. On a nation that still struggles to make room for the truth of its history.

If Douglass were alive today, he might still challenge us:
“You celebrate independence—but what does that mean to the descendants of enslaved people? What does it mean to the communities still denied justice, still under-resourced, still struggling to breathe?
You say this is a land of freedom, but we see how that freedom is policed, taxed, criminalized, and denied depending on your skin color or ZIP code. You say we’re one nation under God—but you forgot to bring everyone under the tent.”
His question might take a modern form:

• What, to the Black child in an underfunded school, is the Fourth of July?
• What, to the family navigating food insecurity in in many of our communities is this celebration of plenty?
• What, to the loved one of someone unjustly incarcerated, is your anthem of freedom?

The Unfinished Business of Freedom
Douglass would acknowledge the progress made—but he would not be blinded by it. He would call out voter suppression, systemic poverty, police brutality, and a justice system that too often feels anything but just. He would speak plainly, calling out the systems that still fail us today:

• Injustice still lives here. Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois are home to towns where disinvestment, neglect, and poverty persist.
• Freedom remains unfinished. The America Douglass dreamed of—where freedom means equity and dignity—remains under construction.
• Racism just wears new clothes. It’s found in voter suppression, redlining, environmental neglect, and the quiet violence of economic exclusion.
• Justice remains delayed. From mass incarceration to health disparities, Black Americans still face systems that do not protect equally.
• Patriotism demands honesty. To love this country is not to ignore its flaws—but to work to heal them.
  “Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us.”
  —Douglass

Turning Reflection into Action
And yet, Douglass was not without hope. He believed in the power of conscience. He believed that truth-telling—even when uncomfortable—was the only path toward true progress. His speech was not meant to shame America into silence. It was meant to call it into action.
That spirit lives on—not only in textbooks or monuments—but in the lived efforts of our people. It lives in mothers creating fresh food co-ops. In artists who paint history onto city walls. In entrepreneurs who plant businesses where others only see blight. It lives in the organizers, the teachers, the caretakers—those who resist simply by building and believing.
His challenge still stands: to hold America accountable—not because we hate it, but because we love it enough to expect more.
“The conscience of the nation must be roused… the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed.”
So this Fourth of July, as the fireworks crackle across the sky, many of us will look up with mixed emotions. We honor the progress—and also the pain. We remember the sacrifice, and the unfinished work. We reflect—not to ruin the party, but to deepen its meaning.
We reflect—not to ruin the party, but to deepen its meaning. We organize. We educate. We vote. We resist by existing, thriving, and speaking truth.
Because the real celebration will come when freedom rings equally for all. When the distance Douglass described is finally closed. When justice is not delayed, and dignity is not debated.
Until then, we remember his question—and we live in pursuit of the answer.
Frederick Douglass’s words remind us that history is not behind us—it walks beside us.
As Douglass challenged his audience in 1852, so must we today: push this country to live up to its own ideals. Not by pretending everything is equal—but by refusing to stop until it is.
Until then, we remember his question—and live in pursuit of the answer.
“Frederick Douglass’s words remind us that history is not behind us—it walks beside us.”

Frederick Douglass was born an enslaved person in Maryland, later escaping into freedom and emerging as one of the leading abolitionist voices in the nineteenth century. In June 1852, he delivered this Independence Day address to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. It became one of Douglass’s most famous speeches—criticizing the chasm between America’s Founding principles and the institution of slavery. In the speech, Douglass lamented that Independence Day wasn’t a day of celebration for enslaved people. At the same time, he urged his audience to read the U.S. Constitution not as a pro-slavery document, but as a “GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.” Urban Voices exists to tell the truths that mainstream media often glosses over. That’s why Douglass’s speech still deserves our attention—not as a relic of the past, but as a guidepost for our present.
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