Does the Declaration of Independence hold any meaning to a man in forced labor? Frederick Douglass asked this on the 5th of July, just after the Independence Day celebration that year. He stirred the listeners, asking hard-hitting questions about independence and hypocrisy within America. If the United States so encouraged and supported and struggled for independence, did that not mean that it supported the struggle of slaves seeking their independence? No. The nation did not recognize that particular struggle for independence. Douglass said that the Fourth of July was a celebration of white supremacy, a celebration of white rights and white ways, a celebration of the independence granted to whites and whites only. The nation turned its back on slaves, showing neither sympathy nor empathy but distance and frigidity between the races. Douglass believed that blacks were capable of living equally to and in equality with whites, and wondered why the similar races had to be so boldly divided when no division was truly apparent. The Fourth of July, to a slave, was a despicable celebration, representing injustice and his own submission to servitude. It was a sham, a day not of liberty, but of deception.
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