‘Reading Frederick Douglass Together’ at CCTV invites community to participate on Wednesday
By Beth Folsom, 2025
Frederick Douglass escaped in 1838 from enslavement in Maryland, where he had spent the first two decades of his life. Over the next 14 years, Douglass traveled around the northern states as an abolitionist speaker and writer, publishing his autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave,” and working alongside other antislavery advocates, Black and white. Douglass delivered his most famous and powerful speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” on July 5, 1852, to the Ladies’ Antislavery Society in Rochester, New York.
In his speech, Douglass recounts his experiences under enslavement and his journey to freedom through self-emancipation. He goes on to question the celebrations of the nation’s independence even as more than 3 million Black Americans remained enslaved in Southern states. Written not long after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that not only allowed but legally mandated the general public to aid in the capture and return of those fleeing enslavement, Douglass’ speech placed responsibility for the perpetuation of the slave system on Northern whites as well as their counterparts in the South. His language throughout paints a very clear distinction between white and Black Americans, as he argues that
The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.
Over the past decade, public readings of Douglass’ speech have gained popularity, particularly as they are held around the time of the Juneteenth holiday and Fourth of July. Many of these readings are sponsored by grants from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities through their Reading Frederick Douglass Together program, including a reading Wednesday at Cambridge Community Television. Calling the essay “a work that continues to resonate deeply in our present-day conversations around freedom, justice and civic responsibility,” CCTV organizers see this event as not simply a reading, but “a dialogue, a reflection and a moment of unity. We hope it will spark conversation, connection and deeper awareness of the role each of us plays in shaping a just and equitable future.”
This Reading Frederick Douglass Together event is part of a long tradition of shared public readings of important documents in Cambridge, including the Declaration of Independence, the City Charter, and the Gettysburg Address. Public readings and discussions of historical documents are particularly important in the current moment as the country begins the process of commemorating the 250th anniversary of independence and coming to grips with the ways in which the city, state and nation have – and have not – lived into the political and social ideals of their founding documents. The July 9 reading invites listeners to engage with the paradox of a country whose Declaration of Independence asserts that “all men are created equal” but whose Constitution enshrined in national law the practice of chattel enslavement.
How have liberty and inequality coexisted in our city and our nation’s past, and what is the legacy of this coexistence for the Cambridge of today? How can we as a city in this time of Revolutionary commemoration work together to ensure that the language and ideals of the Founders apply to all Cantabrigians, and all Americans? These are challenging and often overwhelming questions, but engagement in programs such as Reading Frederick Douglass Together is a good way to begin these conversations. To attend the CCTV event as a reader or an audience member, register here. Information, as well as the full text of Douglass’ speech, can be found on the MassHumanities website.
