{"id":3798,"date":"2026-06-28T16:07:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3798"},"modified":"2026-06-28T16:07:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:07:23","slug":"with-what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july-frederick-douglass-challenged-american-hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3798","title":{"rendered":"With \u2018What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?\u2019 Frederick Douglass challenged American hypocrisy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In our weekly series, One Special Thing, the Globe arts staff highlights something timeless \u2014 movies, books, TV shows, albums, paintings, plays, symphonies, dishes \u2014 that we return to in good times and bad. Something we\u2019re just dying to tell you about. The only parameter is passion.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

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Frederick Douglass was already on his way to becoming the greatest orator of the 19th century when he took the podium in Rochester, N.Y., on July 5, 1852. The occasion was the 76th anniversary of US independence. Douglass was only 14 years past his own independence; he\u2019d escaped from slavery in 1838, and had become a favorite speaker on the abolitionist circuit. He was establishing himself outside the influence of Boston-based abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and publishing his own abolitionist newspaper, The North Star. <\/span><\/p>\n

The speech he gave that day at Corinthian Hall, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies\u2019 Anti-Slavery Society, stands as one of his major achievements, as essential in its own way as his two major autobiographies, \u201cNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave\u201d (1845) and the more comprehensive \u201cMy Bondage and My Freedom\u201d (1855). \u201cWhat to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?\u201d takes a blistering approach to a theme that always feels ripe this time of year: the wide chasm between American ideals and American reality. But in 1852 that chasm seemed as unbridgeable as ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

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