For July 4, Wayland To Read Frederick Douglass Speech

WAYLAND, MA — July 4 fireworks and gatherings have largely been canceled across Massachusetts this year due to coronavirus, but some towns are finding alternative ways to observe the day.

In Wayland, the town library is planning to recognize Independence Day by reading a Frederick Douglass speech that views the holiday from the perspective of a slave. Douglass' "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" speech was originally read in 1852 at a meeting of the Rochester Ladies’Anti-Slavery Society.

The speech underscores the cruel hypocrisy of white people celebrating their independence while still keeping slavery in place.

"To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages," Douglass said in the speech.

Wayland residents will take turns reading the speech beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday. You can sign up to read a section by emailing cmichael@minlib.net. To attend the event, register on the Wayland library website. The reading will take place over Zoom.