Join us on Boston Common for a public reading of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Part of a series of statewide events supported by Mass Humanities, the reading provides an opportunity to open up discourse between community members about race, rights, and our responsibilities to the past and to each other.
Members of the public will take turns reading parts of the speech until they’ve read all of it, together. Everyone is welcome to read; this event is free and open to the public.
Watch videos from last year’s event.
Read an interview with our managing director David Harris in Harvard Law Today about this annual reading and the continued relevance of Douglass’ words.
Co-conveners: Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School — Community Change, Inc. — Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket — Mass Humanities
Co-sponsors: National Parks of Boston — Central Square Theater — Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston — William Monroe Trotter Institute — Royall House and Slave Quarters — Lawyers for Civil Rights — YWCA Cambridge — Codman Square Health Center and Clemente Course, Dorchester — Friends of the Public Garden — Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry — Everyday Boston — Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts — Community Conversations: Sister to Sister — The Robbins House — Union Capital Boston — New Democracy Coalition