"Lovers of Ease and Worshipers of Property"

Reading Frederick Douglass' "What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?”

Note (July 4, 2024): This piece was originally published July 4, 2023. During the ensuing year, SC Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver has declared war on school librarians, quoting Frederick Douglass in a speech remarks justifying book banning— in a state where most book challengers have targeted books about race and LGBTQ+ issues. Her department has intentionally made it much harder for students to take AP African American Studies, and passed perhaps the most sweeping book ban policy in the country— even over the objections of many conservative legislators who support some form of censorship policy. Across the country, similar battles are playing out.

On the 2nd 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…

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross in…