On July 5th, 1852, Fredrick Douglass stood before a racially mixed audience in Rochester, New York and made a scorching rebuke of America's Independence Day. That speech was later published in his autobiography under the title "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
WUKY's Alan Lytle talks about Douglass's famous speech and its relevance, almost 160 years later, with Professor of History and of African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Vanessa Holden.
You can hear an oration of "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," performed by Patrick Mitchell, here at wuky.org.