‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’: Discussion Featuring Eminent Historians Edna Greene Medford, Kay Wright Lewis, and John Muller

What is this?

“I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.” – Frederick Douglass This discussion is part of Hill Center’s Benjamin Drummond Emancipation Day Celebration Series In April 2015, the Benjamin Drummond Emancipation Day Celebration Series launched with a series of programs that considered Ta-Nehisi Coates’ question, “Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?” Eleven years later, as we recognize the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the 250th Anniversary of the birth of the United States of America, we will grapple with abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass’ question, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Moderated by historian and Abraham Lincoln scholar Dr. Edna Greene Medford who will be in conversation with Douglass scholar John Muller, and Howard University professor, Kay Wright Lewis. They will exam