Talking About Frederick Douglass Together

This virtual dialogue event will help Massachusetts residents explore the issues, ideas, and impact of Frederick Douglass’s speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” as well as its intersections with the values, experiences, and issues of our current era. Dialogue provides the opportunity for people to know themselves, one another, and their communities in new and deeper ways, strengthening the foundations of a free and open democracy.

After a reading of Douglass’s speech, participants will be assigned to small breakout groups where they will be invited to join a Reflected Structured Dialogue inspired by the text.

Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery in 1838 and lived for many years in Massachusetts. Douglass was the most celebrated public speaker of his day as well as an internationally renowned public intellectual and abolitionist. He delivered the Fourth of July speech on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.