"The Meaning of July Fourth for a Negro"

This speech given by the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass is basically him telling Americans (mainly white Americans) that they are hypocrites. He says that the way that they celebrate is insensitive to the times and to what is going on in the country (Douglass). On Independence Day, people are celebrating about equality and independence, but at the same time, these people are enslaving other people and treating them very unfairly.

The speaker then goes on to say that during the Fourth of July, freedom of all kinds, including freedom of religion, but slaves are looked down upon for the way that they practice their own religions and customs (Douglass). Throughout the speech, Frederick Douglass also points on the sheer and utter ignorance of the white Americans as they have large celebrations for holidays such as the Fourth of July, which is a holiday about freedom and equality, and do not allow their slaves to celebrate as well. Because the slaves are not free, the Fourth of July seems like scornful holiday instead of happy, as it is meant to be. Instead of celebrating, the slaves apparently find the holiday completely repulsive because they are not allowed to have the same liberties as the white Americans that exercise complete control over the slaves.

Frederick Douglass was extremely familiar with the terrible shortcomings of being a slave. He was born into slavery in the early eighteen hundreds, and then suffered through years of torment until he was able to escape from the awful enslavement he endured at the age of 20 by pretending to be a sailor and running away from his masters home ("Biography"). Douglass then made a home for himself and his family in New Bedford, Massachusetts and began to attend abolitionist meetings and anti-slavery conventions ("Biography").

Due to the fact that he attended all of these conventions and abolitionist meetings ("Biography"), I think that Douglass had a very unique insight into the way that slaves felt about issues that many people did not even think about. As a former slave and as a highly dedicated abolitionist, Douglass saw it as his responsibility to tell people how slaves really felt about seemingly simple issues such as the Fourth of July. People listening to his speech, especially white people, were probably totally shocked to hear what Douglass was saying. Before the period leading up to the Civil War, there were very few people who actually cared about the treatment of slaves. And then for Douglass to tell them that slaves were offended simply by them celebrating a great holiday was probably not easy to hear. However, it was simply the truth and Douglass was trying to get his point across. It really was unfair that slaves could not celebrate a major holiday because they were not granted the same rights as white people (Douglass).

Other than historical accuracy, I do not think that the story represents Realism, Regionalism, or Naturalism in many ways. Frederick probably spoke in an accurate dialect, which would represent Regionalism (Campbell), that was not exactly conveyed in writing. As I said before, the historical accuracy of the speech goes along with Realism, but there was no real concrete connection to any of the movements.

"Biography of Frederick Douglass-Champion of Civil and Women's Rights." Frederick Douglass. Web. Feb 9 2011.
http://www.frederickdouglass.org/douglass_bio.html

Campbell, Donna M. "Regionalism and Local Color Fiction, 1865-1895." Literary Movements. Dept. of English, Washington State University. Web. Feb 9 2011.
http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/lcolor.html