Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

"What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" read by Ossie Davis
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
03 Jul 2024
🖨️ Print Article

Black Agenda Radio · "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" read by Ossie Davis
As we grow closer to the Fourth of July, BAR once again shares this piece - a reading of "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" read by Ozzie Davis

On July 5, 1852 Frederick Douglass was asked to speak on the topic of the nation’s independence celebration. Now known as "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?", the speech was a stinging indictment of slavery in the U.S., but the words are still relevant to Black people 170 years later. The late Ossie Davis read excerpts from Douglass’s remarks.

Slavery
Frederick Douglass
July 4th

Related Podcasts

Gerald Horne
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Gerald Horne Discusses His Book "The Capital of Slavery: Washington DC 1800 - 1865"
27 June 2025
Dr. Gerald Horne is an author and historian who currently holds the John J.
Black Agenda Radio
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio March 7, 2025
07 March 2025
In this week’s segment we discuss the continued genocide in Gaza despite the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Rikers Island
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Rikers Island, Slave Catching, and the Modern Carceral State
07 March 2025
Darren Mack is co-founder and co-director of Freedom Agenda, an organization devoted to d

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Biden's Fate and Israel's Sadistic Revenge
    21 May 2025
    Israel is starving Gazans to death and continuing its bombing attacks on civilians. Israel also specializes in personal revenge, targeting men, women, and children who might be the subject of…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Towards Lasting Peace, Shirley Graham DuBois, 1970
    21 May 2025
    Shirley Graham Du Bois on the liberation of Palestine.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Propaganda Watch: Kagame Is Not Traoré
    21 May 2025
    A recurring social media trope casts Rwandan President Paul Kagame as a defiant African hero, like Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré, resisting the West’s dictates, but nothing could be further from the…
  • Jon Jeter
    In DC, A New ‘Mayor 1 Percent” This Time in Blackface
    21 May 2025
    Muriel Bowser is proving that Black faces in high places don’t break systems, they grease them. While slashing wages for tipped workers and handing billionaires stadium deals, D.C.’s mayor is the…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Temerity, Tartuffery, and Toxic Identity Reductionism…the Latest Democrat Party Hoggwash
    21 May 2025
    The Democratic Party would rather silence critics like Hogg than fix its own rot. Their reliance on Black Misleaders to do the dirty work exposes once again that the Democrats care more about power…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us