Why the voice of Frederick Douglass matters even today

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The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

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Frederick Douglass 1852

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You could be forgiven for assuming that this was part of a speech delivered during the recent Black Lives Matter campaign. A campaign that has made the world listen, stand up and take notice to the ongoing institutional racism that undoubtedly occurs around the world. Yet, these are not the words of a 21st Century orator but that of Frederick Douglass during his 1852 speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. 

Born into Slavery, Douglass escaped his captivity in 1838. He would go on to write about his experience as a slave in his seminal work, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in 1845. The text highlighted the brutality inflicted in the name of the system and indeed, the cruelty suffered by those trapped within. The book would go on to become a bestseller in the northern states of the USA igniting a further desire for the abolition of slavery. However, abolition was far from a speedy process. 

In 1852, Douglass let his frustrations be heard. Invited to speak to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society as part of their 4th July celebrations, Douglass delivered one of his most famous speeches. The irony of celebrating independence whilst also incarcerating over 3 million slaves who were stolen, bought and traded with impunity was not lost on Douglass. Rather than speaking on the day of U.S independence, he opted to address the society the day after. 

The audience of 600 attendees had probably thought that they were on safe ground with Douglass. After all, their fight was also his own. Both parties loathed slavery and wanted to see an end to it. Perhaps they were not expecting what followed. 

He highlighted that the 4th of July was not a national holiday for either himself or his race. It was the hypocritical holiday for those who claimed the importance of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for themselves only whilst others remained shackled and the property of another man.
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​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 sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, 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.

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Douglass knew the power of his words. He knew that by highlighting the hypocrisy of the national holiday and the plight of the enslaved, people would listen. He immediately printed the speech and distributed it for 50 cents a copy as he was on the road speaking to more who would listen. 

Whilst it would ultimately be the Civil War that brought about an end to Slavery in the United States, Douglass’s words would go on to have a profound impact as the issue of race continued to engulf the country. 

Yet, the hypocrisy that Douglass highlighted never vanished with the ending of Slavery. Whilst the chains may have been broken new methods reminded African-Americans exactly who was in charge. From Jim Crow laws, ghettoization, disenfranchisement, curfews and of course, institutionalised racism within the United States. The use of hypocrisy was later used during  the years of the Civil Rights movement. The most notable to echo the sentiments of Douglass's 1852 speech was Malcolm X who in his Ballot or the Bullet speech in 1964 stated:

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We don't see any American dream. We've experienced only the American nightmare. We haven't benefited from America's democracy. We've only suffered from America's hypocrisy. And the generation that's coming up now can see it. And are not afraid to say it.

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​In many respects, it is a hypocrisy that many still endures to this day. The killing of George Floyd on the 25th May 2020 by a police officer in Minneapolis has seen a reaction many did not expect. But it is a reaction that comes after 155 years after false promises and a desire for change. The injustice of that day has now been highlighted to a new America, an America where Douglass would still be fighting to end its own hypocritical nature, where life and liberty are might be more universal but not for all. 

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