Calling for military emancipation makes it difficult to declare who actually freed the slaves before the ratification of the thirteenth amendment. The slaves who ran to Union lines were freed with the document, but they ran to the military on their own will. Lincoln did not have anything to do with their running away because it has happened for centuries. It is this fact that makes the efficiency of the Emancipation Proclamation questionable. If the document did not remove the slaves from their masters and no one enforced it, how could it be efficient? Gates, Bennett, and Lincoln made the observation that the document only freed the males that joined the union. This makes it difficult to find records of exactly how many slaves the document…
In the autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave, Douglas reinforces the universal human condition of freedom through syntax, figurative language, and selection of detail. This is demonstrated in the third paragraph, which makes it stand out.…
tals and sexual vigor.) The Caucasian has used his gun (his proxy penis) to conquer Africa- and with its liberal and profitable distribution within, he keeps it torn and asunder. (So too with his guns and drugs he keeps destabilized our American communities.) For liberation, it is for us All of color to abandon his ways that we have adopted, and revive our social and spiritual traditions.…
“What to the Slave, is the Fourth of July” is a powerful testament of American hypocrisy. To read—let alone be present while the speech was delivered—would bring an overwhelming surge of shame and embarrassment of my actions (i.e. partaking in the active slave trade or lack of abolitionist support). Though many verses from this work are undeniably gut wrenching to the audience, the most thought provoking and life altering was when Douglass stated plainly, “the sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.”…
Audre Lorde recalls her first experience of Washington D.C. in Fourth of July; she is transformed from an innocent naïve child to a serious adult who is discriminated against when the “realities of race in america and american racism” (line 30) is explicitly shown proving that her ideal land of the free does not exist.…
Later, he dedicated his expertise, as influenced by William Garrison to become a widely popular anti-slavery lecturer across the nation and Europe (Murphy, Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?). On July 5th 1852, Douglass gave an address in Rochester, New York titled What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (Murphy, Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?). During his address, he shared his view of the hypocrisy of the church on slavery. He recounted the indifference of the church to the moral injustices, as well as the fostering of the oppressors, American slave-hunters and the system itself (Douglass). Specifically…
In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave written by, none other than himself, Frederick Douglass presents to the reader several instances in which the fellow slaves that he knew, a vast majority of them family and friends, were whipped nearly to death and were inflicted upon the most horrible crimes known to man. Through these stories from his past, the reader is shown how cruel and emotionally scarring to the individual slavery was and why it should never have happened. By the end of his narration, Douglass manages to express to the reader through his appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos, the need for slavery, as inhumane and unjust as it was, to come to an end.…
The great civil rights activist Frederick Douglass was born into slavery on a Maryland Eastern Shore plantation in February 1818. His given name, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, seemed to portend an unusual life for this son of a field hand and a white man, most likely Douglass's first master, Captain Aaron Anthony. Perhaps Harriet Bailey gave her son such a distinguished name in the hope that his life would be better than hers. She could scarcely imagine that her son's life would continue to be a source of interest and inspiration nearly 190 years after his birth. Indeed, it would be hard to find anyone who more closely embodies this year's Black History Month theme, "From Slavery to Freedom: Africans in the Americas." Like many in the nineteenth-century United States, Frederick Douglass escaped the horrors of slavery to enjoy a life of freedom, but his unique personal drive to achieve justice for his race led him to devote his life to the abolition of slavery and the movement for black civil rights. His fiery oratory and extraordinary achievements produced a legacy that stretches his influence across the centuries, making Frederick Douglass a role model for the twenty-first century.…
Douglas, Frederick. “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro.” History is a Weapon. n.d.…
Frederick states that the Fourth of July to a slave," reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim". "To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless..." Frederick reveals the injustice that many slaves go through such as, "rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the last, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters”. (Douglass…
This narrative begins with the childhood of Frederick Douglass and ends with his adventures as an abolitionist. He gives insight into his personal recollections of his first awareness of what it meant to be a slave, from his own experiences and his experience as a witness to the brutality of one human being upon another human being. He allows readers through his words to have a front row seat to the world of slavery and the main objective of slavery supporters to dehumanize and oppress another race and culture. The goal of his prose is to raise awareness of the cruelty of man upon the backs of blacks, which subsequently he hoped would end…
The Fourth of July is a time in which Americans can celebrate their independence and freedom. In 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech titled, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” at the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, NY. Douglass, a former slave, was invited to speak on July 5th. Douglass uses this opportunity to voice a major concern of his – the abolition of slavery. His powerful use of rhetoric must have captivated his audience. Douglass’ most convincing points are when he uses language to separate himself from America’s most patriotic holiday, and how he later uses pronouns to unite with his audience to give America a sense of hope for change.…
The speech by Frederick Douglass tittle “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”? Mr. Douglass addresses that from a slave point of view, and even to the freed African American, the 4th of July is a joke. Douglas uses a number rhetorical strategies to pass on his sentiments about the problem.…
A good Fourth of July party, has to be planned a good while ahead of time. First you have to know where the party is going to be. You have to plan that early to see if you can get that place for your party. After you know where the venue is going to be you have to plan the food, decor, and people coming. Its nice to plan that after you plan the venue because those are more easier than the venue. At your party you pretty much have to play some games. Some games that are easy to do are corn hole, scavenger hunt, tag, and bingo. The last thing you want to do is last minute, easy snacks and decor. A successful Fourth of July party starts with nice, early…
Frederick Douglass's “What is your 4th of July to me” speech is a very moving speech. In his speech, he talks about how the United States, is hypocritical in all of eachs preachings. The liberty, justice for all, equality, and many other phrases stated in the constitution and other American documents are hypocritical. Slavery is going on in the United States at this time and they are preaching about equality. Many of the writers of the constitution were slave owners and remained so until death, even post independence. This speech points out exactly how I feel about the writers of the constitution. Sure they were freedom fighters but, they still kept freedom away from others because of greed, and the color of their skin. That is not what the constitution or America is about.…