NORTHAMPTON — An annual tradition that highlights the contrast between America’s Independence Day celebrations and the experiences of enslaved people drew a somber but passionate crowd on Sunday, and those involved said the work of abolitionists in the 19th century continues today in a new form.
More than 50 people took turns reading one paragraph of the speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, lining up at three microphones on the grounds of Historic Northampton to mark the 170th anniversary of the address that Frederick Douglass delivered to the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, N.Y.
On occasion, readers paused to regain composure or spoke with shaking voices.
“Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them,” Douglass said at the time, adding, “I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July!”
The event, organized by the Northampton nonprofit Mass Humanities and rescheduled from Saturday because of weather concerns, was attended by more than 100 people, including local elected leaders Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra and state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa.
Sabadosa, a Northampton Democrat, read the opening paragraph in which Douglass marveled at the fact that he had escaped from slavery 14 years prior in 1838, saying, “That I am here today is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude.”
The speech pulls no punches in its criticism of American social and religious hypocrisies of the time. Douglass described, in heart-wrenching detail, a caravan of enslaved adults and children being driven like cattle between states so they could be separated and sold, and said that, despite the virtue of the country’s founders, such abuses had become the status quo.
“The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me,” Douglass said in his speech more than a decade before slavery was outlawed.
Sciarra read the final paragraph in unison with the crowd assembled under tents. Douglass ended his speech by quoting abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who wrote, “God speed the day when human blood shall cease to flow,” and longed to “change into a faithful friend each foe.”
Rose Sackey-Milligan, the senior program officer at Mass Humanities who served as master of ceremonies, said that although the same brutal system of forced labor no longer exists, the speech remains relevant today.
“It’s almost as if he was talking about the very same issues 170 years hence. If we are paying attention to what’s happening in our country, you can think about concrete examples (like) the disproportionate number of people of color in prison,” Sackey-Milligan said. “It’s not about the past. It’s really, really, really about the present.”
Referring to the theme of Douglass’ speech, Sackey-Milligan said some people of color in America may experience an internal conflict on Independence Day “because of these inequities that are challenging all of us.” She said people should have “deep and profound conversations with each other” about the speech.
Douglass visited Northampton at least six times throughout his life, working with other abolitionists and free-born or formerly enslaved Black people and giving speeches to hundreds of residents at a time.
Historic Northampton said that when Douglass spoke to as many as 500 people on Main Street in April 1844, someone threw a rock at him. This visit is believed to be the time when he met fellow abolitionist and former slave Sojourner Truth, a statue of whom now graces the Pine Street park in Florence that is named after her.
Douglass would later describe Truth as “a strange compound of wit and wisdom, of wild enthusiasm and flintlike common sense, who seemed to feel it her duty to trip me up in my speeches and to ridicule my efforts to speak and act like a person of cultivation and refinement.”
In his famous Fourth of July speech in 1852, Douglass said he refused to spend time defending the humanity of slaves or arguing the point that African-Americans deserved the same rights as anyone else. He said that America had already determined that all people are in charge of their own bodies and destinies, and, “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know slavery is wrong for him.”
Shara Denson, a member of Historic Northampton’s board of trustees, heard the speech for the first time on Sunday. She said that, 170 years later, it touches on problems that Americans still face.
“What was impressive to me was how relevant it is today,” Denson said. “I don’t think there’s just one person who has an answer. I think it’s a collective, and people need to pay attention to what’s going on out in the world, rather than their own little sphere.”
The Smith College Museum of Art is exhibiting a film inspired by Douglass’ life called “Lessons of the Hour,” directed by Isaac Julien. The film will be on view through July 10.
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.