BFW Revisited: Whose Fourth of July?

BFW Revisited: Whose Fourth of July?

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and asked one of the most searing questions in American history: "What, to the slave, is the Fourth of July?"

To answer Douglass's question, we have to go back to the Revolution itself; to the choices Black Americans made in wartime, to the ways they read, used, and interrogated the Declaration of Independence, and to the alternative celebrations they created when the Fourth of July felt like someone else's holiday.

Historians Christopher Bonner and Martha S. Jones help us explore what the Fourth of July meant for African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and how their experiences with the Fourth contributed to the larger history of the nation's founding.

Christopher's Website | Book
Martha's Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/277

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers
🎧 Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July
🎧 Episode 255: Birthright Citizens
🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers, Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News
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Episoder(511)

448 The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture

448 The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture

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BFW Revisited Threads of Power

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For the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations People, the American Revolution brought not liberty, but land loss, displacement, and the dismantling of their world. The new United States seized land from Haud...

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447 The Other Committee Members: Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, and the Declaration of Independence

447 The Other Committee Members: Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, and the Declaration of Independence

Five men served on the Continental Congress’s Declaration Committee. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the other two?In this episode, we exp...

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BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft, 2026

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446  The Declaration of Independence at 250

446 The Declaration of Independence at 250

250 years after its signing, the Declaration of Independence remains an unfinished document. Its famous assertion "that all men are created equal" and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty,...

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445 How Independence Happened, Pt 3: The Articles of Confederation

445 How Independence Happened, Pt 3: The Articles of Confederation

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444 How Independence Happened, Part 2: The Model Treaty

444 How Independence Happened, Part 2: The Model Treaty

Declaring independence on July 2, 1776 was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to n...

23 Jun 1h 16min

443 How Independence Happened, Part 1: The Lee Resolution

443 How Independence Happened, Part 1: The Lee Resolution

Declaring independence on July 2, 1776, was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to ...

16 Jun 1h 15min

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