July 3, 2008 - Issue 284
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Quote to Ponder: "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?..."

- Frederick Douglass

Quote to Ponder:"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.
To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour." - Frederick Douglass

This quote is from a speech given by Douglass on July 5, 1852 at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York.

Click here to read the entire speech.

Click here for more information about Frederick Douglass.

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