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They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You may rejoice, I must mourn.. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations history the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. In 2019, the monument was moved to an even more prominent location within the park, and is now located at the corner of South Ave. and Robinson Drive. You live and must die, and you must do your work. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Washington, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. Twin Oaks | The House Built for Frederick Douglass - FDMCC They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. DC Read the full text below of the sage words from one of the greatest orators of all time. They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. Not too far from Mount Hope Cemetery is the Frederick Douglass Monument, honoring Douglass in Highland Park.The monument is located steps from the former site of Douglass' home and is believed to be the first public statue erected to memorialize an African American in the U.S. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. Offers may be subject to change without notice. The rapper and actor purchased his Arizona getaway in 2007 for $435,000. Home - Douglass Leadership House | University of Rochester The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and toallrights in this republic, the rights of God included! Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. You may well cherish the memory of such men. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Frederick Douglass, Speech at Dedication of Emancipation Memorial (1876 Download the official NPS app before your next visit. Frederick Douglass High School 8000 Croom Road Upper Marboro, MD OUR MAILING ADDRESS 8787 Branch Avenue, Suite 208 Clinton, MD 20735 LANDMARKS Croom Road is directly across from the Safeway and Bojangles shopping center Contact TSHICC- We Want To Hear From You! or is it in the temple? The centerpiece of the site is the historic house, which sits on top of a 50-foot hill and eight acres of the original estate. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. From police shootings to the wage gap to crippling stereotypes (and everything in between), there are too many parallels today with what Douglass described in his speech to white America, including this relevant line: This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills, headed CASH FOR NEGROES. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Search . Frederick Wayman Hodge, 74 - Mesa, AZ - Has Court or Arrest Records No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. Open 9 am - 5pm (Apr.15 - Oct.15) and 9am - 4pm (Oct.16 - Apr.14). The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. By that act, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. It will also remind us of a walk 198 years earlier that involved just two . The historic site will be welcoming visitors for the first time in 3 years. Frederick Douglass died in 1895, leaving behind a rich legacy from enslaved man to a driving force of the abolitionist movement and ambassador to the black republic, Haiti. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. Fromwhat quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. The Frederick Douglass Houses Douglass Houses is a public housing development located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City. Find a local dealer. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. Frederick Douglass' original home on Rochester's South Avenue burned down in 1872, after which he moved to Washington D.C. No one seemed to remember that he actually had another house in Rochester until Czerkas started doing her historical detective work. Ice-T's House (Google Maps). The Empire-Style townhome, at 216 A Street Northeast, was once the residence of abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the 1870s. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. The time was when such could be done. welcome atheism! The website also includes a map leading viewers to the other Douglass statues. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. The drove moves tardily. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. When Douglass delivered his famous "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" address before an audience at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, he was issuing "a . When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, thenwill I argue with you that the slave is a man! Oppression makes a wise man mad. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? FREDERICK DOUGLASS | William G. Pomeroy Foundation You have already declared it. The property is overseen by the National Park Service which is a bureau of the Department of the Interior. Frederick Douglass National Historic Site | Washington DC A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. The time for such argument is passed. The Frederick Douglass House is less than a mile walk from the Anacostia metro stop. He became a leading voice in the abolitionist movement, able to move crowds with poignant speeches drawing from his horrific experience of slavery Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. Frederick Douglass held many titles in his esteemed life, but one we are incredibly proud of is "Rochester's Son." Douglass called Rochester home from 1847-1872. Beginning in 1908 and until his death in 1935, Joseph and his family began summering at Twin Oaks. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ, is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. "We had to have something, because everything else was gone. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. The house, furnishings and personal belongings tell many stories: Douglass family man, author, orator, and public figure; Douglass's interest in literature, games, music, health, learning, travel; and of the people in Douglass's life like Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and John Brown. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, 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. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. With head, and heart, and hand Ill strive, 8 Times Obama Showed Trump How Presidents Are Supposed To Celebrate The Fourth Of July, Welcome To The Cookout: 10 Lit Movies To Watch During July Fourth Holiday Weekend, Black Future Co-op Fund Awards $1.05M In Grants To Black Women-Led Nonprofits Advancing Social Justice, What Happened To Carlee Russell? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. Lynn Legacy: Frederick Douglass' Local Connection 301-952-2400. Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1817 or 1818 [a] - February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. House Tour. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. Yet they persevered. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. that it should be so; yet so it is. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. Fellow-citizens! Mailing Address. It is neither. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! an area that includes the main house, gardens and an extensive collection of personal effects that both captivate and educate visitors about Douglass and his family. How should I look today, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. This house was constructed between 1855 and 1859 by John Van Hook and associates. We invite you in to meet Mr. Douglass and his family. During the Civil War he worked tirelessly for the emancipation of enslaved African Americans and during the decades following the war, he was arguably the most influential African American leader in the nation. You have no right to enjoy a childs share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed. Take exit 1C for Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? The Frederick Douglass' house reopens to the public after three years But, to proceed. He can bring no witnesses for himself. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moments warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. Is that a question for Republicans? I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Frederick Douglass Chambersburg and Gettysburg PA Sites It was, Milloy continued, a critique of a nation that claimed to hold dear the principles of freedom, justice and equality even as it enslaved black people.. It is not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above, and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,without partiality, and without hypocrisy. But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains,stay there; and to the oppressor,oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have Abraham to our father, when they had long lost Abrahams faith and spirit. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. Named after Rochester icon Frederick Douglass, the mission of the Douglass Leadership House (DLH) . Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried mens souls. As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. He was laid to rest in Rochester's historicMount Hope Cemetery, which also happens to be the final resting place of suffragist Susan B. Anthony. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Students needed a place to address racism and isolation on campus, as well as allow POC to come together and be our authentic selves. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form.