The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro

“The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” is a very powerful speech written by Frederick Douglass and spoken the day after the Fourth of July celebration to a white audience in New York (Douglass 337). Its somber attitude and subject matter and the fact that it destroys traditional Romantic ideas about that particular national and patriotic holiday make it distinctly Realist.

While many people of the day would have celebrated the liberty they had in America on the Fourth of July, Frederick Douglass strove to draw attention to the fact that there were still many in America at the time who had no freedom: the slaves (Douglass 337). Through this excerpt in his speech, he makes it clear that the happiness and liberty shared that day was not equally shared at all:

“The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not 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" (Douglass 337)

This is where Douglass uses reality to make his point clear and also makes this speech a piece of Realism. While his white audience was enchanted by the notions of liberty and joy throughout America on that Fourth of July celebration, he tells them that really, not everyone was able to enjoy and share in such riches and prosperity that day (Douglass 337). He goes on to say:

“What, to the American slave, is your fourth 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. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery" (Douglass 337)

In this section, Douglass shows the plight of his protagonist, who is an everyday man, just as a Realist protagonist should be, the slave, who is large in number but little in power. He aims to disillusion the crowd he speaks to, and in this way, he tries to make social change, another factor common to Realist literature. He also speaks of reality when he says these things, as many slaves were indeed embittered due to their plight and found the reality of the white man’s freedom very harshly unjust when juxtaposed to their own position. The last line of the excerpt is as follows: “There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. (Douglass 337)”

While this may seem an exaggeration at first, it must be thought about. Other countries at this time that own slaves do not lie and boast that they have freedom for all on their shores. Only America does this, and that is the most shocking and horrendous thing of all.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." GlencoeLiterature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 337. Print.