Committed to investigating, examining, and representing the African-American male, men, and manhood by offering commentary regarding the status of Black Men and Black Manhood as it relates to African-American Manhood, Race, Class, Politics, and Culture from an educated and authentic African-American perspective aimed at improving the plight of African-American men and African-American Manhood in regards to Politics, Culture, Education, and Social Matters.
Fredrick Douglas originally gave this speech on July 5th, during the year of 1852. This day is what the slaves considered as their Fourth of July. Within the speech, Douglas speaks about hypocrisy, mockery, and displayed immense emotion through his words. At that point in time, slaves were yet to be free, that did not come until 13 years later. This is why Douglas was angry, there was no reason to celebrate because neither him or his people were free. James Earl Jones did a great job of depicting the emotion Douglas put into his speech.
This speech was originally written in 1852 which was 11 years before the emancipation proclamation of 1863 and 2 years off from the freeing of the “last people in bondage”. James Earl Jones was able to capture the fury that Fredrick Douglas must of felt being called to speak at an event to celebrate something he hand his fellow blacks in America had yet to obtain. It was highly insulting to him that he would even be considered to speak at such an event. However, I can imagine that the speech was probably so unexpected that it probably caught fire among the states very quickly.
July 5th of 1852 was considered their Fourth of July. Also it was the day that Fredrick Douglas did his speech.