The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro

The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass portrays how Douglass feels about the Fourth of July. Douglass basically says that for African Americans, they cannot really celebrate the Fourth of July. Douglass says, "The Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn..." (Douglass).

Douglass says he must mourn the Fourth of July because it reminds him and every other African American of how they are always the victim of the white man's wrath. They are always blamed for everything bad that happens, and they are stomped upon day in and day out. Douglass says,

"What, to the American slave, is your fourth of July? 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. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour" (Douglass).

In this passage Douglass is describing how the whites in the United States are pretty much hypocrites for celebrating the fourth of July and America's "freedom" when not everyone in America is free. Douglass says the whites fight for liberty and equality, yet they own slaves and treat them like dogs.

In the South, Whites usually did not like to let their slaves celebrate the fourth of July because they were afraid their slaves would get ideas about freedom, not like they already did not have ideas of freedom (Joe). In the North, blacks were discouraged from attending the fourth of July and other festivities as well (Joe).

Douglass' speech, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro, depicts Realism because it describes how the fourth of July actually is for an African American. For Douglass and his fellow slaves, the fourth of July is a reminder of how horribly they are treated every day. Douglass describes the white man as being ignorant and hypocritical in how they view slaves. Whites do not understand that slaves want their freedom and want to be real citizens of the United States. They celebrate the fourth of July and America's freedom, but there are still men and women in America who are not free. Not until years later do African Americans become truly free men.

In Douglass' speech, I feel that the African American is the "hero". Slaves have to work very hard all day, and they do not complain much because if they do, they will get whipped or hurt very badly in other ways. The slaves were like the backbone of the South because if it was not for them, the South's economy would be pretty much nothing. White people took slaves for granted, and they treated them like they were property, not human beings. The slaves had to suffer through a lot of terrible things and hypocritical people.



Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro.” In American Literature. Willhelm, Jeffory, comp. McGraw Hill. Columbus, 2009. Print.

Joe. "Frederick Douglass: The 1852 Speech on the Meaning of the Fourth of July". Racism Review. 2011. http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2009/07/04/frederick-douglass-the-1852-speech-on-the-meaning-of-the-fourth-of-july/. Accessed 3 Feb 2011.