Honoring America’s promise by reading Frederick Douglass
ADVERTISEMENT Sponsored by The Boston Foundation The Best of CommonWealth Beacon OPINION A flyer for the series of recitations across the state of Douglass's famous speech "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" Honoring America's promise by reading Frederick Douglass June 28, 2026 By Brian Boyles During the years of preparation for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I’ve known one thing for certain: on July 4, 2026, I will read Frederick Douglass somewhere in Massachusetts. This is the 18 th year in which Mass Humanities has sponsored readings of Douglass’s famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” This year, fittingly, 76 communities signed on to read the speech. While each event is different, most take the form of a shared recitation of the speech, with one person reading a passage, then handing over the microphone for a neighbor to read the next. ADVERTISEMENT The address is a searing critique that begins with praise...