He says, you know, you've got the document. They are right there in the Declaration of Independence. What Douglass is really doing here is pointing to America's creeds, its first principles. Even if you're speaking to a crowd, essentially, of your like-minded friends, this is still a very poignant attack on anyone who considered themselves a patriotic American. KING: Was this speech a gutsy move? Or because he was in front of a friendly audience, was it extraordinary but not particularly brave?īLIGHT: It was a gutsy move. To drag a man in fetters into the grand, illuminated temple of liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony." The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. He's separating himself already and says - I quote - "The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. Your founders, your Declaration of Independence. And where you see it is how often he uses the pronouns you and your. And I have to believe some of them were squirming. It's like he's raining down thunder and hail on his audience. And in that middle of that speech, it is almost like a hailstorm. And he says, look, these were geniuses who created this republic out of the 18th century.īut then, of course, the rhetoric begins to shift. He called the principles of the Declaration saving principles - equality, the natural rights tradition, popular sovereignty, which means a republican form of government, and the right of revolution. Why does he begin that way?īLIGHT: Well, he's setting his audience in a safe place. The Founding Fathers, he says, were great men. KING: As you said, he doesn't start this speech with a condemnation. Today, it will remind people so much of the current crisis we're in and this ever-lasting problem that we never quite are able to solve - the question of race. And it is a great warning that if the country doesn't find a way to face this problem, it will face tremendous disruption, tremendous violence. And its great theme is American secular and religious hypocrisy for the practice of slavery. You might yet have a chance to save yourselves. And the last movement of the speech, he says, your nation is still young. There is a horrible reptile coiled up at your nation's heart. He takes that audience to the dark heart of what slavery really is.Īnd then that middle movement - he says, oh, be warned. He sets them all at ease, but then he takes them through a litany of all the horrors of the slave trade, of the slave ships, of slave auction blocks. He calls the Fourth of July the American Passover. He calls the Declaration of Independence the ring-bolt of American liberty. First movement, he sets them at ease by honoring the Founding Fathers. This speech that Douglass gave before that crowd in Rochester was called "What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?" Yale historian David Blight says it was one of the most riveting and compelling speeches Douglass ever gave.ĭAVID BLIGHT: This speech is a symphony with three movements. He was a genius who became one of the best-known abolitionists and thinkers in the world. He'd secretly taught himself to read and write. Their guest speaker was Frederick Douglass. They'd been brought together by the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. In July of 1852 in Rochester, N.Y., a crowd of about 600 people gathered together in a hall. The pathogen can remain viable in infected debris for several years.As we get ready for the Fourth of July tomorrow, we're remembering a remarkable speech about Independence Day. Once the disease is on a site, infections can develop and spread rapidly, especially when humidity is high. Spread to new areas is mainly through movement of infected plants, but not all infected plants show symptoms, which can make long-distance spread difficult to manage. Biologyīoxwood blight is caused by two closely related fungal pathogens that can infect all above-ground plant parts, resulting in leaf lesions, leaf drop, stem lesions and severe dieback. Neither species of boxwood blight have been identified in Minnesota. Calonectria henricotiae has only been identified in Europe. in 2011 (Connecticut) and is now known to occur in 25 states, in both landscape and nursery settings. The boxwood blight fungus, Calonectria pseudonaviculata, was first found in the U.S. Boxwood is a broad-leaved evergreen (leaves do not drop in winter) shrub and is sometimes used in decorative wreaths, which can be infected with the disease. Boxwood ( Buxus) is the primary host for boxwood blight, but also infects Pachysandra and sweet box ( Sarcococca).
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