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Primary Sources- Famous Speeches: Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July"

By Newsela Staff
Last updated 3 months ago
3 Questions
Note from the author:
Read the passage Famous Speeches: Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July". Then answer the questions below.
Read the passage Famous Speeches: Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July". Then answer the questions below.
Required
1.

Which historical question does this source BEST help to answer?

D2.His.10.6-8
Required
2.

What reasons did former slave Frederick Douglass use to support his argument against the celebration of the Fourth of July while slavery still existed? Select two correct answers.

D2.His.4.6-8
Required
3.

Drag each sentence from the text into the correct box to show whether the sentence demonstrated Douglass' perspective towards the institution of slavery or his perspective towards the celebration of American independence.

  • Is it wrong to keep them ignorant, to beat them with sticks, to strike their flesh with the lash, to put them in chains?
  • What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
  • It is admitted in the fact that Southern laws forbid the teaching of the slave to read and write.
  • America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
  • To drag a man in chains into the grand temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in happy song, is inhuman mockery.
  • Douglass' perspective on the institution of slavery
  • Douglass' perspective on the celebration of American independence
D2.His.13.6-8