Having taught himself to read and write while a slave, Douglass is one of the most inspiring examples of the power of literacy. With extraordinary courage, he had escaped from his slave master.
But his greatest legacy to America is his oratory, forged in the crucible of the battle against slavery in the years prior to the Civil War. He is best known for his three inspiring autobiographies. Throughout his life, Frederick Douglass struggled to resolve the American dilemma, the contradiction between the ideals professed by the nation’s Founders and the practice of denying human rights to black Americans and other minorities.Ī self-educated fugitive slave, abolitionist, advocate for women’s rights, orator, journalist, and diplomat, Frederick Douglass was the most famous black person of the nineteenth century. But for Douglass, the Fourth of July was also a day to remember that America’s ideals remained unfulfilled for blacks enslaved in the South. For Douglass, the day had multiple meanings. It was the anniversary of the birth of the United States of America, which, he agreed, should be celebrated the Fourth of July was the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the historic document that committed the nation to the ideals of liberty and equal rights for all. Since the early years of the American republic, the Fourth of July has been the day Americans reaffirm their common identity and purpose in a collective ritual.
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