By Arnie Alpert, Lively with the Activists
Arnie Alpert spent a long time as a neighborhood organizer/educator in NH actions for social justice and peace. Formally retired since 2020, he retains his arms (and ft) within the activist world whereas writing about previous and current social actions.
When the Rochester, New York Women’ Anti-Slavery Society invited Frederick Douglass to ship an Independence Day tackle in 1852, he spent a number of weeks making ready his remarks. Drawing on American historical past, the crucial of slavery’s abolition, and biblical narratives, Douglass took on the persona of a Hebrew prophet in an oratorical show that his biographer, David Blight, calls “the rhetorical masterpiece of American abolitionism.”
On July 5, 1852, Douglass requested, “What to the slave is your Fourth of July?” Having escaped slavery in Maryland in 1838 and joined the ranks of abolitionist circuit-riding lecturers in 1841, Douglass by 1852 was one in all America’s main voices for ending slavery. The ability of Douglass’s phrases is so resonant that even now the 1852 speech will get recited in public settings, which is what’s going to occur in 16 New Hampshire areas at midday on Saturday, June 28.
Based on the Black Heritage Path of NH, which has coordinated public readings of the speech for a number of years, the annual recitation of “What to the Slave is Your Fourth of July?” marks a “important second for reflection and dialogue on the legacy of slavery and the continuing wrestle for equality.”
“We imagine within the energy of Frederick Douglass’ phrases to spark significant dialogue and encourage optimistic change,” mentioned JerriAnne Boggis, Govt Director at BHTNH. “By coming collectively to learn and talk about his speech, we are going to create an area for reflection and motion in the direction of constructing extra inclusive and simply communities.”
Explaining why the Elkins Public Library in Canterbury is co-sponsoring a studying at Canterbury Shaker Village, the library’s director, Rachel Baker mentioned, “A library ought to at all times permit for the chance for an individual to expertise another person’s life and perspective, in a e-book, in a program, in a presentation. That’s the one method we will study.” The studying of the 1852 speech “permits for a profound expertise in the neighborhood, to listen to the phrases of Frederick Douglass, to know the phrases, to know the time wherein he spoke,” she mentioned.
“The Frederick Douglass studying is vital to Canterbury Shaker Village as a result of the Canterbury Shakers believed within the equality of all folks,” added Kyle Sandler, the Village’s Director of Interpretation and Schooling. “No matter ethnicity or nationwide origin, the Shakers accepted new members with open arms and supplied them an equal footing within the Society.”
For teams that need to host a studying, the Black Heritage Path gives a information, together with a replica of an abridged model of Douglass’ prolonged speech and a suggestion that they recruit 10 to 40 volunteer readers. They counsel dividing up the speech into sections and giving volunteers an opportunity to assessment their components earlier than the occasion.
Teams in different states, together with Massachusetts and Kansas, arrange readings of the 1852 speech, as nicely.
Douglass was no stranger to New Hampshire. In his autobiography, he describes an 1842 journey to Pittsfield, the place he obtained a cold reception. He additionally spoke on the State Home grounds in 1892 on the dedication of a statue of John P. Hale, an abolitionist who was among the many founders of the Republican Get together. By my rely, he made at the least 19 journeys to New Hampshire from 1841 to 1892, generally touring for days from city to city to present anti-slavery lectures.
The 2025 readings come at a time when historical past, particularly the historical past of enslavement and liberation, is contested territory. And as Douglass would later say, ““No a part of the previous is useless or detached.”
The 1852 speech started with appreciation for the sacrifices of America’s founders, however quickly moved on to a blistering assault on the slave commerce and the two-year-old Fugitive Slave Act, below which the ability of the federal authorities was harnessed to detain and return those that, like Douglass, had managed to flee from bondage. Even in so-called “free” states like New Hampshire, human beings could possibly be returned by slave-catchers to situations wherein they had been handled as property.
“Fellow residents, pardon me, permit me to ask, why am I known as upon to talk right here at this time?” Douglass requested the principally white viewers of greater than 500 folks. “What have I, or these I characterize, to do along with your nationwide independence? I’m not included throughout the pale of this superb anniversary. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You might rejoice; I need to mourn.”
“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is required,” Douglass thundered. “O! had I the power, and will I attain the nation’s ear, I’d, at this time, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it isn’t mild that’s wanted, however hearth; it isn’t the light bathe, however thunder. We’d like the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The sensation of the nation have to be quickened; the conscience of the nation have to be roused; the propriety of the nation have to be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation have to be uncovered; and its crimes in opposition to God and man have to be proclaimed and denounced.”
Beneath the Fugitive Slave Act, “that almost all foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the freedom and particular person of each man are put in peril. Your broad republican area is searching floor for males. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, however for males responsible of no crime,” Douglass charged.
For Jennifer Kretovic, a member of Harmony’s Metropolis Council and the Harmony Historic Society, the parallel to present occasions is apparent. In reference to a current ICE exercise, “we’ve had a few of that occuring right here in Harmony,” she mentioned this week.
Harmony’s studying of the Douglass speech, the second annual, will happen within the shadow of a statue of Franklin Pierce, the New Hampshire-born president who enforced the Fugitive Slave Act, and never removed from the statue of Daniel Webster, who negotiated its passage. For Kretovic, it’s a reminder that what was related so a few years in the past remains to be related at this time. “If we’re not going to be an oppressed nation, then all of us want to face up and communicate the reality, and the reality lies on this speech, “she mentioned.
Jim Millikin, president of the Harmony Historic Society agreed. “I believe our democracy is basically below menace proper now, and we’ve acquired to talk up,” he mentioned.
“Douglass’s speech isn’t a relic of the previous. His mastery of language, argumentation, and ethical reasoning challenges us at this time to mirror on hypocrisy, civic accountability, and the hole between the beliefs upon which Manchester was constructed and our lived actuality. His phrases educate, empower, and encourage us to deal with the continuing struggles for racial justice, equality, and civil rights,” commented James McKim, who’s organizing a studying sponsored by the Manchester NAACP on the Manchester Public Library.
As Douglass himself mentioned on July 5, 1852, “We now have to do with the previous solely as we will make it helpful to the current and to the long run. Now’s the time, the vital time.”
Within the phrases of the Black Heritage Path, “As we commemorate the beliefs of freedom and justice this Fourth of July, allow us to additionally decide to advancing the unfinished work of equality for all.”
Douglass concluded the 1852 speech with a hopeful interpretation of the nation’s founding paperwork, which he insisted promised equality, not enslavement. “The doom of slavery is for certain,” he mentioned. “I, subsequently, depart off the place I started, with hope. Whereas drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the good rules it accommodates, and the genius of American Establishments, my spirit can be cheered by the apparent tendencies of the age.”
“What to the Slave is Your Fourth of July?” Readings 2025
All of the readings happen on Saturday, June 28, at midday.
- Portsmouth, sponsored by Black Heritage Path of New Hampshire at Strawberry
Banke, 14 Hancock St. - Amherst, sponsored by Congregational Church of Amherst at Congregational
Church of Amherst, 11 Church St. - Andover, sponsored by Andover Historic Society, 105 Depot Avenue, Potter
Place. - Canterbury, sponsored by Canterbury Shaker Village and Elkins Public Library in
the Assembly Home at Shaker Village. - Harmony, sponsored by Harmony Historic Society at Metropolis Plaza.
- Dover, sponsored by Dover Public Library at Metropolis Corridor, 2nd Flooring Auditorium, 288
Central Ave. - Exeter, sponsored by Exeter Congregational Church’s Social Justice Staff on the
Congregational Church, 21 Entrance Avenue. - Hopkinton, sponsored by Hopkinton Historic Society at Hopkinton City Corridor,
330 Principal St. - Peterborough, sponsored by Monadnock Middle for Historical past and Tradition in
partnership with the Hancock Group Conversations on Race at 19 Grove St. - Lebanon, sponsored by Valley Perception Meditation Society at Colburn Park, 51 N
Park St. - Manchester, sponsored by Manchester Department of the NAACP at Manchester
Public Library, 405 Pine St. - Nashua, sponsored by Larger Nashua Department of the NAACP at Nashua Library
Gardens, 2 Court docket St. - Rochester, sponsored by Rochester Opera Home at 31 Wakefield St.
- Rollinsford, sponsored by the Affiliation for Rollinsford Tradition and Historical past at
Colonel Paul Wentworth Home, 47 Water St. - Tamworth, sponsored by Cook dinner Memorial Library in partnership with DEI within the
Lakes & Mountains at Cook dinner Memorial Library, 93 Principal St. - Warner, sponsored by Warner Historic Society at Warner City Corridor, 5 E Principal
St.
Full particulars at https://blackheritagetrailnh.org/frederick-douglass-statewide-
readings/.
