“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech by Frederick Douglass (1852)

Since 1777, the U.S. has celebrated its national birthday on July 4th. In 1852, Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery and became a Black Abolitionist and social reformer in the U.S., wrote a speech now referred to as “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Since 2018, some friends in the U.S. have felt the need to read this speech each year on July 4th and to broadcast it, initially using pirate radio and internet radio signals. 

In 2020, WGDR 91.1FM in Plainfield, Vermont USA; Helsinki Open Waves (HOW) in Helsinki, Finland; WMCB 107.9 lpFM in Greenfield, Massachusetts USA;  Orange 94.0FM in Vienna, Austria and Sketchpad Radio in Bergen, Norway are coordinating together to broadcast this reading of the speech far and wide on July 4th at 16:00 CET (17:00 Helsinki time). 
Laura Wulf (website: http://www.laurawulf.com/) is the reader. 

You can find the text by Frederick Douglass here.

Credits

Reader: Laura Wulf
Sound recording: Karen Werner
Helsinki Open Waves streaming: Lucien Athanase
Poster: Nur Tiven 

*The views expressed in this podcast and texts are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of Helsinki Open Waves.  

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