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“What, to the American slave, is your 4th 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.”

Source: “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”, speech in Rochester, New York, 5 July 1852

Context Invited to speak for Independence Day by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, he chose to speak the day after the Fourth.

Portrait of Frederick Douglass
Frederick DouglassUnited States · 1818–1895
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