Reflections on Frederick Douglass' oratory, "What to the Slave is The Fourth of July?"
I just finished reading Frederick Douglass’ oratory, “What to the Slave is The Fourth of July?”. It is a powerful speech that gave little comfort to his audience that in 1852, yet in closing he sounded a note of hope for the young Republic. His criticisms of the institution of chattel slavery struck at the heart of American ideals, and those criticisms ring true today in the face of an oppressive, authoritarian President and his regime. His criticism of religion in America, as it did then, stands in stark relief to the image that today’s self-styled “Christians” have of themselves. The evangelicals, the Dominionists, and others of their ilk, see themselves as agents of God, delivering his justice and word to a nation they claim is rooted in Christianity and biblical dogma. Instead, “They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty…”. The leaders of these evangelical cults of personality, “make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having n...