Douglass Delivers "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July"

Frederick Douglass addressed the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society on July 5, delivering what became one of the greatest speeches in American history. "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." The speech brilliantly turned American ideals against the reality of slavery.