1. Wednesday August 31st

2. Agenda “What To a Slave Is The Fourth of July”
Analyze the Text Questions
Critical Vocabulary

3. As You Enter… Please find your Binder/Portfolio and have a seat.
Stacking 101:
Bottom Binder points towards the wall. The KEY!!
Alternate: pointy side, spine, pointy side, spine, etc.
Keep your binder in your period’s section please!
This is not your room, please do your part to keep my classroom organized.

4. What To a Slave Is The Fourth Of July?
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, around The exact year and date of Douglass's birth are unknown, though later in life he chose to celebrate it on February 14. Douglass initially lived with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. At a young age, Douglass was selected to live in the home of the plantation owners, one of whom may have been his father. His mother, an intermittent presence in his life, died when he was around 10.
Frederick Douglass was eventually sent to the Baltimore home of Hugh Auld. It was there that Douglass first acquired the skills that would vault him to national celebrity. Defying a ban on teaching slaves to read and write, Auld’s wife Sophia taught Douglass the alphabet when he was around 12. When Auld forbade his wife’s lessons, Douglass continued to learn from white children and others in the neighborhood.
With Douglass moving between the Aulds, he was later made to work for Edward Covey, who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker.” Covey’s constant abuse did nearly break the 16-year-old Douglass psychologically. Eventually, however, Douglass fought back, in a scene rendered powerfully in his first autobiography. After losing a physical confrontation with Douglass, Covey never beat him again.

5. What To a Slave Is The Fourth Of July?
Douglass tried to escape from slavery twice before he succeeded. He was assisted in his final attempt by Anna Murray, a free black woman in Baltimore with whom Douglass had fallen in love. On September 3, 1838, Douglass boarded a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. Murray had provided him with some of her savings and a sailor's uniform. He carried identification papers obtained from a free black seaman. Douglass made his way to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York in less than 24 hours.

6. What To a Slave Is The Fourth Of July?
At the invitation of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, Frederick Douglass delivered this speech on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York.
The 500 to 600 people who heard Douglass speak were generally sympathetic to his remarks. A newspaper noted that when he sat down, “there was a universal burst of applause.”
Nonetheless, many who read his speech would not have been so enthusiastic. Even Northerners who were anti-slavery were not necessarily pro-abolition. Many were content to let Southerners continue to hold slaves, a right they believed was upheld by the Constitution. They simply did not want to slavery to spread to areas where it did not exist.
In this Independence Day oration, Douglass sought to persuade those people to embrace what was then considered the extreme position of abolition.

7. What To a Slave Is The Fourth Of July?
He also sought to change minds about the abilities and intelligence of African Americans. In 1852 many, if not most, white Americans believed that African Americans were inferior, indeed, less than fully human. Douglass tries to dispel these notions through an impressive display of liberal learning. His speech gives ample evidence of knowledge of rhetoric, history, literature, religion, economics, poetry, music, law, even advances in technology.
James Earl Jones reading Fredrick Douglas’s speech:

8. What To a Slave Is The Fourth Of July?
Complete:
Analyze the Text, #1 – 5 on page 292
Critical Vocabulary, #1 – 5 on page 293