 My name is Jennifer Moyston and I'm the community participation officer for the town of Amherst, as well as the human rights coordinator. And I'm co hosting today with Ingrid ask you who is the founder of the reading the Frederick Douglass reading project, and we have Sean Hannon the IT director to help us with the technical support. Before I handle this over to Ingrid, I just want to go over a few things today's events is recorded. The events is also a webinar as opposed to a meeting which means that the audience we will not be able to see you if you do have a question. Please use the raise your arm, raise your hands function on zoom or you can type in your question under the q amp a During this, you will not be so you said that we will not be seen and as always we ask you to please please be respectful to the other members who are here who have joined us and any unwanted comments or discussions will be reason to be rejected from the meeting. Okay. And so now I'm going to turn this over to Ingrid Ingrid would you please start us off. Hello. Good afternoon, everyone and welcome and thank you so much for joining us in our fifth year of doing the reading of the Frederick Douglas speech. We're doing in some trying times right now folks and this speech resonates more than ever. And I'm sorry that because of co vid that and social distance thing we couldn't do it our regular way on the Amherst common with our wonderful choir and our gorgeous readers, but it's still necessary. More than ever so here we are on zoom. And actually, I don't have much more to say we all know what we're going through and I just am happy that we can be here together and presenting this most powerful piece of history. I've written by such an illustrious and amazing human being Frederick Douglas. I would like to begin by reading the very first paragraph and then we just move on to the next person. So, let's begin. Mr President friends and fellow citizens. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability than I do this day. The papers and placards say that I am to deliver a fourth of July oration. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation from which I escaped is considerable. And the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former are by no means slight. That I am here today is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. This, for the purpose of this celebration is the fourth of July. It is the birthday of your national independence and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day and to the act of your great deliverance. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad fellow citizens that your nation is so young. You are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought and hope is much needed under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. Fellow citizens, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your sovereign people in which you now glory was not then born. You were under the British crown. Your father's esteemed the English government as the home government. England as the fatherland, although a considerable distance from your home, imposed in the exercise of its parental prerogatives upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens, and limitations, as in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right, and proper. But your fathers, who had not adopted the idea of infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need to say, fellow citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers, feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government. Your fathers, like men of honesty and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated. They did so in decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness, and scorn. Yet they persevered. Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers became restrictive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men, there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of economies from the crown was born. It was a startling idea much more so than we at this distance of time regarded. The timid and the prudent of that day were of course shocked and alarmed by it. They were affrighted for syphorists against it. The alarming and revolutionary idea moved on and the country within it. In the second half of July, at the end of this year, the old constant numbers systematized the love of the East and the war against the property. The old pattern of the year was the only theory of national distinction. They did so in the form of resolution. Resolution is open, that there is no guarantee that all the people that resolve that these of the free and independent states that they are absolved from all of the existence of the British. Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded, and today you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours, and you therefore may properly celebrate this anniversary. The Fourth of July is the first great fact in your nation's history, the very ring bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny, so indeed I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles. Be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. Hello, citizens. I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this Republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statement, patriots, and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. They loved their country better than their own private interests, and all will concede that it is a rare virtue that ought to command respect. He who will intelligently lay down his life for his country is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty they lost sight of all other interests. They were peacemen, but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men, but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance, but they knew its limits. They believed in order, but not in the order of tyranny. With them nothing was settled that was not right. With them justice, liberty, and humanity were final, not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. How circumspect, exact, and proportionate were all their movements. How unlike the politicians of an hour, their statements look beyond the passing moment and stretched away in strength into the distant future. Mark them, fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them. Your fathers, the fathers of this republic, laid the cornerstone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a time. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household work. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to others. My business, if I have any today, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. Now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of your fathers unless your children are to be blessed by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? And am I therefore called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar and to Congress the benefits and expressed about gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? An affirmative action could be truthfully returned to these questions. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? But such is not the state of the case. I say it with that sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary. Your high independence only reveals the measurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I mourn. To drag a man in feathers into the grand illuminated temple of liberty and call him to join in joyous anthems were in human mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? Fellow citizens, above your national tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains heavy and grievous yesterday are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day from the slave's point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondsman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. 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. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce with all the emphasis that I can command everything that serves to perpetuate slavery, the great sin and shame of America. I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will use the severest language I can command, and yet not one word shall escape me that any man whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice or who is not at heart a slaveholder shall not confess to be right and just. I fancy I hear someone of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less? Would you persuade more and rebuke less? Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But I submit where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch on what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are 72 crimes in the state of Virginia which if committed by a black man subject him to the punishment of death while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral intellectual and responsible being? Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding under severe fines and penalties the teaching of the slave to read or write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field then I'm in to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dog in your street when the fowl the air when the cattle on your hill when the fish of the sea and the reptiles that crawl shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a then I will argue with you that the slave is a man. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing planting and reaping using all kinds of mechanical tools erecting houses constructing bridges building ships working in metals of brass iron copper silver and gold that while we are reading writing and ciphering acting as clerks merchants and secretaries having among us lawyers doctors ministers poets authors editors orators and teachers that while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men digging gold in california capturing the whale in the pacific and feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside living moving acting thinking planning living in families as husbands wives and children and above all confessing and worshiping the christians god and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave is it not astonishing that we are then called upon to prove that we are men would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty that he is the rightful owner of his own body you have already declared it must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation as a matter beset with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice hard to be understood how should I look today in the presence of americans to show that men have a natural right to freedom to do so would make me just ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding there is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him what am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes to rob them of their liberty to work them without wages to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men to beat them with sticks to flay their flesh with the lash to load their limbs with irons to hunt them with dogs to sell them at auction to sender their families to knock out their teeth to burn their flesh to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong no I will not I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply but then remains to be argued to do that slavery is not divine that God did not establish it that our doctors and divinity are mistaken there's blasphemy and the thought that which is humane cannot be divine who can reason as such a proposition I cannot the time for such a argument is past at a time like this scorching irony not convincing argument is needed oh had I the ability and could I reach the nation's ear I would today pour out a fiery steam of biting ridicule lasting reproach withering sarcasm and stern rebuke for it is not light that is needed but fire it is not gentle shower but thunder we need the storm the world wind and the earthquake the feeling of the nation must be quickened the conscious of the nation must be roused the prop property of the nation must be startled the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and it is crime against God and man must be croaked claimed and denounced what to the american slave is your fourth of july 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 a constant victim to him your celebration is a sham your boasted liberty and unholy license your national greatness swelling vanity your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless your denunciations of tyrants grass-fronted impudence your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery your prayers and hymns your sermons and thanksgivings with all your religious parade and salinity are to him near a bombast fraud deception impiety and hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages there is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these united states at this very hour go where you may search where you will roam through all the monarchies and despot despotism of the old world 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 arrival take the american slave trade which we are told by the papers is especially prosperous just now as the price of men was never higher and which is carried on in all large towns and cities in one half of this confederacy this trade is one of the peculiarities of american institution in several states this trade is a chief source of wealth it is called the internal slave trade in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave trade is contemplated the foreign slave trade has long since been denounced by this government as piracy as an ex so extracurable extracurable traffic to arrest it this nation keeps a squandering at immense costs on the coast of africa oppose a like to the laws of god of man it is however notable a notable fact that while so much exploration is poured out by the americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave trade the men engaged in the slave trade between the states pass without condemnation and their business is deemed honorable in america you know this I'll show you the man group group. They have it all across southern states. They perambulate the country and crowd the highways of the nation. With the strokes of human stock, you will see one of these humans, less than any of 100 men, women, and children, from the Potamac to slave markets at New Orleans. These ranched people are to be sold to the Orton Lobs, to super purchasers. They're full for the barfield and the deadly sugar mill. Mark the sad procession, as it moves warily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrightened captives. There, see the old man, with locks thinned in gray. 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. See, too, that girl of 13 weeping, yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn. The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have merely consumed their strength. Suddenly, you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle. The fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously. Your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul. The crack you heard was the sound of the slave whip. The scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains. That gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction. See men examined like horses. See the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever. And never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where under the sun can you witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking? Yet this is but a glance at the American slave trade as it exists at this moment in the ruling part of the United States. I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me, the American slave trade is a terrible reality. The flesh mongers gather up their victims by dozens and drive them chained to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number has been collected here, a ship is chartered for the purpose of conveying the furlough crew to mobile or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night. In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps and the fierce cries of the shingans that passed our doors. Tell us, citizens, this murderous traffic is today in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the south. I see the bleeding footsteps. I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity on the way to the slave markets where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There, I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken to gratify the lust, caprice, and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight. But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. Mason and Dixon's 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 where is co-extensive with the star-spangled banner in American Christianity. Where these go may also go the merciless slave hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He's a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad Republican domain is hunting ground for men. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President and Secretary of State enforce as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country and to your God that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than 40 Americans have within the past two years been hunted down and without a moment's warning hurried away in chains and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children dependent on them for bread, but of this no account was made. The right of the hunter to his praise stand superior to the right of marriage and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included. For black men there is neither law nor justice, humanity nor religion. The fugitive slave law makes mercy to them a crime and bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge gets $10 for every victim he consigns to slavery and five when he fails to do so. 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. His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witness for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side, and that side is the side of the oppressor. Let this stemming fact perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world that in tyrant killing, caning, hating, people loving democratic Christian America the seats of justice are filled with judges who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe and are bound in deciding in the case of a man's liberty to hear his only accusers. In glaring violation of justice in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless from the diabolical intent this fugitive slave law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. Americans, your Republican politics not less than your Republican religion are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization and your pure Christianity. While the whole political power of the nation is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crown headed tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your democratic institutions while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad honor them with banquets greet them with ovations cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them and pour out your money to them like water but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever staying the character of a nation a system begun in avarice supported in pride and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears overfallen Hungary and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators till your gaunt sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against the oppressor but in regard to tens of thousands wrong of the American slave you would enforce the strictest silence and call him as an enemy of the nation who dares make those wrong the subject of public discourse you are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty and the enslaved America you discourse eloquently on the dignity of the labor yet you sustain a system where every essence casts a stigma upon labor you can bury your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a three penny tax on tea and yet ring the last hard earned farthing from the grasp of black laborers of your country you profess to believe that one of blood that of one blood God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth and hath commanded all men everywhere to love one another yet you notoriously hate and glory in your hatred all men whose skins are not colored like your own you declare before the world and are understood by the world to declare that you hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and yet you hold securely in a bondage which according to your own Thomas Jefferson is worse than ages of that which your father's rose in rebellion to oppose a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country Hello citizens I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies the existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham your humanity as a base pretense and your Christianity as a lie it destroys your moral power abroad it corrupts your politicians at home it saps the foundation of religion it makes your name a hissing and a byword to a mocking first it is the antagonist antagonistic force in your government the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your union it fetters your progress it is the enemy of improvement the deadly foe of education it fosters pride it breeds insolence it is the earth that supports it and yet you cling to it as if it were the sheet anchors of all your hopes be warned a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation's bosom the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic for the love of god tear away and fling from you the hideous monster and let the weight of it destroy it forever but it is answered in reply to all this that precisely what I have now denounced is in fact guaranteed and sanctioned by the constitution of the united states that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that constitution framed by the illustrious fathers of the republic then I dare to affirm notwithstanding all I have said before instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be were the various imposters that ever practiced on mankind this is the inevitable conclusion and from it there is no escape but I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the constitution of the united states it is a slander upon their memory at least so I believe and others have as I think clearly and clearly vindicated the constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour allow me to say in conclusion notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation I do not despair of this country there are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery with hope while drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence the great principles it contains and the genius of American institutions my spirit is cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago no nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference the time was when such could be done but a change has now come over the affairs of mankind walled cities and empires have become unfashionable the arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents oceans no longer divide but link nations together from Boston to London is now a holiday excursion space is comparatively annihilated thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other in the feverent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison I say and let every heart join in and saying it all Godspeed the day when human blood needs to flow and every crime can be understood in flames of human brotherhood and in return for all good but not for love but that day shall come all feuds to end and change into a peace of friend and reach out we did it yes I just lost the page I'm coming back guys here I am wow let's just take a moment and give ourselves a round of applause again please awesome that was amazing I'm so happy we did it because my heart has been real heavy and I'm sure all of you as well with everything that's going on but you know Gil Scott Aaron said the revolution will not be televised but guess what brother Gil it's being televised it's happening right now and you know I'm frightened I'm angry and I'm so excited I'm really really happy that it's happening it's finally happening you know and we have a lot of work to do we have so much work to do and everybody that was on this reading this powerful speech and those powerful words all I know most of you and all of you are in the trenches so yeah guys it's here it's here and so you know we need to keep coming together and continuing the plan and continuing the work and finding ways of expressing ourselves and doing this work together you know so any ideas I'm here I can't get back to South Africa for another year so I'm around so let's make some things happen I also want to say to the young people that read I'm so proud and my faith is in all of you ordinary young people you're brilliant you're strong you're vibrant and you know we're here for you and I'm sorry you have this struggle and you know we've been working it for a long long time and I'm sorry we couldn't get things straightened out for you but we're passing the baton yeah I will be calling on you young people soon I have some ideas up my sleeve and I want to work with each and every one of you I'd like to hear from everybody and we can chime in as we want and let's just make it a conversation how it felt to read this poem today and just what's going on with you in light of everything that's happening in our country I feel really pleased to be here with all of you people these are wonderful people all of you young people and the old ones too that's right Carly and Gary you're all young people that's right all young and hard anyway right I would comment that we've all grown up hearing what a great orator Frederick Douglass is but until you have to get into the bones of it and say it speak it out loud see the structure which is incredible and the rhetorical devices and the brilliance of the speech the boldness I mean it's shocking at times the boldness that he got up and what he said I think that we have to do this we can't just hear about people and experience what we can and to know that the people did the audience listened and listened carefully and closely and remembered it was a very very important speech I think it's the boldness that I really appreciate about it there is one line in there about not light but fire and to hope that there is some fire going on for real change that we can help maintain but it is the boldness you just wish you were there to hear it and really hear it from his words but this is my second time being part of it and it moves me to tears in part how relevant it is right now to just substitute the word racial discrimination instead of where he says slavery and it is today's words I would like to say that I was so moved in reading this at how eloquent he was I am a writer and expression it felt as though he was inside my head as well as being very current for right now it's hard to believe it was written so many years ago and rather sad that we are still in this same place or worse but it was quite moving and really important that we all did this so thank you and I'm Saouda Garrett I'd like to say something I'd like to say this is about the third maybe the fourth time I participated in this and with the yearly phrase of Frederick Douglass's oratory as well as how much it fits the time the times are changing and it still fits I'd like to say that that's not the most significant thing about this Frederick Douglass was bold to say it then but I would argue no more bold than it is to say the obvious that black lives matter more than white feelings just as bold as it was to say you can't make a country and founded on liberty while you enslave people it's just as bold to say in 2020 you can't have a country and be more concerned about people's feelings and uncomfortableness than the ways people's lives are affected by systemic racism and then also with respect to my elder mama Ingrid I would say I don't necessarily want to apologize to the generations coming before me or coming after me that I haven't gotten to figure it out I would implore younger generations to understand there will be triumphs and there will be disasters there will constantly be struggles in your generation and the ones that come after you and in my generation and the ones that came before what's important is to define yourself and meet the triumphs and disasters as if they're both the same thing you're too low to hide that all this whole thing is all figured out and the next generation will be fine or too low that this can never be figured out and I just want to blow it all up and destroy it you have to mentally, emotionally, spiritually come to a balance of understanding what your efforts are going towards are because of who you are what you define yourself as and what your commitment of a particular goal that will now make you what you are it's very important for mental and spiritual well-being not to leave generations of people thinking that you're a failure or we have failed or the more work that needs to be done is indicative of some failure or thought in ourselves that can have to eliminate so I didn't have my camera on since I don't have a camera but you know I was reading this and I mean it's kind of my same sentiment as always that we are where we are in the moment and we got to keep fighting for it you know I don't ever really really question the fight for my rights I never get tired of it but I do just look at kind of the insanity of the people in power where they always are stuck in the same loop of I mean their mindset we all see it that's not something new but I just observe it and I can only look with disappointment in them and disappointment in those in power and it just furthers my determination to make change so I wanted to also say something because there's been I've been on Twitter a lot lately and it's kind of a challenge for folks that it's a hashtag site black women and so the question went out yesterday you know is there a Mary Ann Shad or did a woman give a speech about the irony and the trauma of the 4th of July and so the challenge has gone out to a bunch of us to try to find that document so that we can not only celebrate Frederick Douglass but also hear the voices of black women not to take away from Frederick Douglass everybody loves him but I'm just saying also to think about how women were also talking about the what how bondage affected them on this holiday so I just wanted to put that out there great we don't have to wait for the 4th of July statement by women a woman would be great we could read that next that's right Gary I just want to read we have a comment I'm not sure what happened real quick and you know we can celebrate Anna Murray Douglass 26 year old paid for Douglass's freedom out of slavery from her own wages married and raised his children and shared a better education for her children even if she couldn't obtain her own and continued to work while he traveled and wrote books and she was a black female suffragists abolitionist wife mother grandmother so you know there's something to celebrate now but I agree doctor you know battle batisse that we need to find that document and I'm sure it's there you know there's so much of history that has gone neglected and wanting that document but I'm not going to go into the terms of black women and their contribution so agreed and so don't know truth right here in the valley we should pay more attention to yes I think by Deborah Smalls which is absolutely stunning as well as the nameless women who fought for their their children and taught in the Negro schools that we just don't know their names that doesn't mean that there are millions of them okay so this comment is from Tim Holcomb I was never exposed to this speech in my education is it taught now thank you ignorant Ingrid and readers for the inspiring presentation and I am down with helping get this great American Patriots words into the world thank you Tim and yes another question is this will be recorded and we will have it on the human rights commissions page by midweek it'll also be airing on Amherst media yes I just wanted to raise the issue that the commenter asked the question is it taught now and I want to highlight the question for the participants in the town that watches this which is that the department of elementary and secondary education in Massachusetts in the curriculum frameworks that design and structure our children's education do not include in a meaningful way the history of African Americans Africans in the world and African Indians in the United States in a meaningful manner where it's integrated into the curriculum much less other experiences as well and I won't say more about it now but I do feel that with allies in education this if there's not a time to advocate for a meaningful inclusion into K the 12th curriculum I don't know what is the time I think this is the time that's right thank you for saying that and I know I taught in New York and I taught constitutional law and I taught a feminist course which was really I got away without being controversial because that shows you people don't pay attention but those things were never in the books I used to have books that said Egypt is not in Africa so I would have my students take a marker and put that right across that area and then write Egypt is in northeast Africa it doesn't have to be in the curriculum but who do we have and do the teachers know anything and that's my question because we're coming across people who have no concept slavery no concept of Africa except African history didn't start with slavery so there's a lot of misinformation and lack of information among older people who are teaching who are you know involved in things and so we really need to take a look at some of that maybe that would make some difference to a few people in this country to know that there's history and all kinds of things and I guess I'm brought to that because recently on Facebook I saw some of my former students who have been graduated for 1820 years talking about me teaching about this teaching about I didn't even realize I was teaching it that that's long ago but it was it was nice to hear that they did get an education they said she just left the textbook and gave us handouts so it can be done it just has to be done in a in a in a serious manner I would like to say something more about women sorry did I interrupt someone Jim is talking about all after you after you I think it'd be wonderful to try to find the voices of black women at around this time but we have to remember that black women were dealing with a double oppression and very few women were empowered to be speakers to teaching colleges women didn't get the vote until about 60 years I think after the Emancipation Proclamation so that even when a woman was a black woman was emancipated her options were really limited there was an interesting controversy within the women's the women's anti-slavery movement about whether or not women's emancipation or women's getting the vote should be combined with abolition it's very complicated not worth going into but I would love to be part of a search for women black women voices around this time but just because we don't they didn't make it to the printed page doesn't mean they weren't there they just didn't have those means sometimes and black women's voices now I especially am thinking at this moment about Tony Morrison and everything that she has done for my consciousness and what a tremendous triumph her life work is and now we're in a time of leadership of black women black lives matter movement and so many other movements and women are out on the streets they're leading they're taking power they're being bold we have this theme of boldness and these women are being extraordinarily bold and there is a history of black women writers many of us are not aware of it it might not have been at the time of Frederick Douglass but Nellie Larson Jesse Fawcett who ran Crisis Magazine and Petrie there is a long history of women authors and most educators are unaware of that and so that's why the curriculum needs to be addressed for my sister Dr. Whitney battle baptism her book black feminist archeology we can start there and look at that history in terms of the science of archeology but also what has been done and her contribution here locally and then we have an exhibit that is still at the museum in springfield that my colleague Janine fonden and Lucy Lewis all three of us put together that exhibit on women of color and their local participation not only in voting but just history in general has been extended until January the museum opens again July 7th so folks can go and see that at safe social distancing but we have an exhibit highlighting local contributions of women of color excuse me D what museum in springfield so the whole museum complex there it's okay I have to think of the name but it's yeah it's in the quadrangle so you know there there are resources here in the valley we don't have to look you know nationally right here so just to remind folks we have those treasures like Whitney here in the valley I don't want to embarrass our son but I know that he wants to say something and doesn't want to interrupt his elders so I just wanted to let you know please have him come on now I just want to say something less after that statement I just want to say that on the topic of education I think a lot of times when you're taught about like black history in America or in Africa usually if you learn about it in the context of the United States the focus is on black people like fighting for civil rights or abolitionists and it gives the impression that it's normal for a group of people to be subjugated and have to fight for their rights when obviously inequality is not normal and it's not some state that has to exist naturally and then when you learn about like the history of like African nations a lot of the time at least through my experience is that it's contextualized based on their interactions through war and trade with the western world which kind of gives off this idea that the western world and or like the United States and Europe is sort of like the default setting for what civilization and democracy looks like Thank you for saying that Thank you Well I'd say something for the internet I've been teaching a number of courses at Holyoke Community College and I often teach public speaking and one part of it is great speeches and I wanted some other speeches I wanted by a black order because our students think that Martin Luther King is the only black man that ever gave a speech and I certainly knew about Frederick Douglass but I didn't know about this speech so it was just through messing around on the internet that I found it and then found that it's in many many versions depending upon how short it's cut because it's a really long speech that I would then print it out and bring it into my students so it was kind of like about five or six years ago with a feeling of kind of discovery because that's why I'm still blown away by the speech I haven't known this speech for my whole adult life so maybe there's a little movement of things going on the internet where some of the things that may not have been that obvious are being moved up so that you see them quicker I got to know I'm so angry by hearing her be sojourner truth I'm sure we can find some sojourner truth there are a couple of different renditions of her things which are really splendid as well as I to be well I was going to say when last week we had a walk for the June 25th for the passing of the women's right to vote in Massachusetts and I walked for the women who weren't allowed to vote even with the passing of that and I to be well was one of them and she also created the alpha suffrage movement which was black women for suffrage and they registered after 1920 etc they registered thousands and thousands of black women and I do believe it has a lot to do with the movement that is going on now the women having a say in the south had a lot to do with that promotion of it and the many suffragettes that were black women who had to walk in the back of the march on Washington for the suffrage and were not allowed to join some of them because they didn't want to turn white women and the south off so it was an article about it also I want to underscore what D Andrew said about women just because women didn't stand up and make speeches necessarily in the middle of the 19th century they were doing a lot of things so we have to use a different lens sometimes to see the way they were powerful and vocal we have someone from the audience who would like to either ask a question or make a comment so I'm going to give you permissions to speak yes I just wanted to thank you for putting this together and I want to encourage Gabrielle to continue to tell the other side of the story among his peers and others and again just to thank everybody for bringing this speech to light there is a version in the internet by his great great great grandchildren that we should be sharing as well especially with the younger people and just thank you and again this speech is so right on to this day even to the judges to the systems it hasn't changed at all and I'm appalled and I am going to continue to be bold just like the theme has been on today because it's important yes thank you Grie and the chair of the human rights commission I would just add a little note to that we have the speech that we have because reporters were there because there was a handwritten copy because it was covered I think that many black women did speak I think they spoke a lot but if they weren't covered by the press I think they spoke a lot but if they weren't covered by the press or the mainstream media we don't have anything Ingrid yes I don't know how much time we have but I'm hoping that we will have enough time for me to lead everybody in a song absolutely maybe we can close it out I think that's a beautiful idea let me know when unless anybody else has anything else to say or if there's any more comments coming through we have some more comments again can we radically restructure Amherst school curriculum at this point create small pods of students who learn about lesser heard and unheard writers this is true history as well as literature that's a great idea and Tim is a great theater person as well I just want to mention that a few of the Amherst educators are currently in the process of again writing a curriculum inclusive social justice type curriculum so Tim I would suggest that you send your comments to Mike Morris the superintendent of schools and you can send that to M-O-R-R-I-S-M at rps.org I just learned that again learned that a few educators are attempting to write a curriculum for K through 12 second time that educators in the Amherst school district have done so the first time that curriculum has been ignored and so now they're attempting to do it again so Tim please send it to Mike Morris that's Morris M-O-R-R-I-S-M at rps.org Amherstregionalpublicschools.org I'd like to add some good information I'd like to say something you know that I came to Amherst in 68 and started working in the public school system I worked there for probably 20 years before I went to Iowa and then came back the same curriculums there were attempts because I was on a lot of inclusion and diversity initiatives it just amazed me that they're saying that they want to do this again I think something else has to be done besides getting on committees getting hearts out and getting something down on paper there's something about I guess follow-up and accountability we got to build that in Edmonton since 1961 for that 50s yeah because I taught in California for a while too and it's the same same song we've got to write it differently this time Trevor thank you Barbara Gary I want to kind of echo and piggyback on Mama T and what she is just explaining about her experience I have experience in Amherst particularly as well I think it's a very effective critique of my neighbors in Amherst and the culture writ large there is that there tends to be a social capital to getting on committees and appearing progressive and trying to do things that look like they may be taking baby steps towards this is why after a long time of licking my own political where I am, my own healing has led me to the belief that you can't get too high or too low about what other people are going to do because some people are going to do things to look like they're doing things some people are going to do things that will alleviate some problems some people will do things that will cause other problems but there's constantly going to be a struggle and it should be that way personally, individually people can recognize that in themselves and allow others to have that the easier we can communicate and coalesce in other words it's not the looking like I'm on a committee to do something the humble brags of what I did and what this one did and what I was involved with more so the recognition of people humanity and their individual situations and what I do or suggest to the teacher from HCCC in teaching speech writing or public speaking Ida B. Wells' speeches about lynching and what is actually happening to human being is something that can be connected to and it has the added benefit that particularly for a population like Amherst where there can be social capital social justice things you can't fake fighting against killing people versus there's no baby step to stop that Ida B. Wells one of my favorite quotes of hers is every black household should have a place of honor for a Winchester rifle cutting it, no short changing it no baby steps towards it life is precious enough to be defended or you don't and I would say that just changing curriculums or being part of groups to change curriculums is not evidence of finding who actual collaborators are it's really evidence of finding who may just want to be seen as socially progressive and Lee did you have a comment yes real quick the museum it's at the D'Amour Museum the exhibit on women of resilience which is the local history of women of color but the other Dr. Shabazz had a comment yeah the speech here reminds me most importantly from all the way back then of the insufficiency of white nationalism as a unifying centering narrative for this country it's taken a long time for it seems like the rest of the country to come around but it does look like today's young generation is stepping forward to reject a white nationalism as a centering unifying narrative it preserves racism it preserves racial domination you know Mrs. Loana Hood the honorable Loana Hood who was with us on all these kinds of endeavors I'm reminded how she did not wait for in terms of trying to interrupt the white nationalist narrative she didn't wait for permission for anyone to create the museum in Springfield she just did it and likewise we can't wait on Alyssa Brewer the town councillors or anyone to approve us to have a black history museum right here in Amherst a place that can educate about Augusto Rodriguez as Ms. Hood did in Pamusa the first Puerto Rican veteran of the US armed forces fought in the Civil War for freedom for the Union the first from out of New Haven Connecticut and they exhumed his body from Connecticut to bury him in the Puerto Rican national cemetery with full honors for the dignity of his service we've got people who served from right here in Amherst and their names are on marble tablets and we don't even display them we leave them in crates and don't even display them and acknowledge them as Puerto Rico has knowledge Augusto Rodriguez for his service, what are we doing what are we about here in Amherst I want to pick up on those stones I've been following this since I heard about them I am very upset that we have not yet found a way to display the stones and I don't, instead we get all kinds I'm going to step on toes here we get talks about building a performance space on the green what we need is a space on our green it has to be enclosed to preserve the stones but I've been attending as many meetings as I can on Zoom about them I hear they're in perfect condition, they've been restored they're safe, but we have to make a place and there's only two places as far as I see it's a feature park where it could be part of the history of the town it's a place where black and white people come together in supporting the cause and I'm excited that they exist but we have to do it, so if anyone wants to work with me to try to get this thing moving, please do we're working on the Jennifer and the two Shavasas and the Tardikovs we have a committee and we're working on it we're going to seaside tomorrow look at me, appreciate your support too well I anyway I can help, please let me know because I'm really dedicated to that cause we'll do that I don't know what's on this yeah I just want to say that I think a lot of the times we find ourselves when we're pushing for change against the status quo in America divided on whether we should push for social change or economic change sometimes it seems like if we want to get certain economic things and we want to coalesce around that we have to give up certain social reforms because they aren't as attractive to the white moderates in America you have to push for social reforms like the ones we're talking about and economic reforms no amount of economic reforms even if everyone had equality of opportunity no matter what color they were that wouldn't help if black and brown Americans didn't feel they were equal to their white counterparts because of what they're taught by experience and in the same way no amount of feeling equal to your white counterpart will help you unless you have economic equality of opportunity so we really need both and you know it really makes sometimes I hear this from from like a lot of white people on the left I'm sure no one here of course but they say oh you want to get those economic reforms stop pushing for that form of affirmative action stop pushing for this and that I mean would you have said that to Martin Luther King would you have told Martin Luther King oh if you want to see Medicare for all Martin Luther King you should really give up on pushing against segregation and then you can get all the white people on board with Medicare for all I mean it seems ludicrous to say that to Martin Luther King and that's how ludicrous it feels when it's said to me so you know if you want racial justice it needs to be economical and needs to be social there's also the movement for reparations in America I encourage people to look at the national coalition for reparations in America website where you'll get information on reparations that is currently in its 400th year of attempts to well maybe not 400 years let me make it maybe 300 years attempts to secure reparations as a way Martin Luther King was denounced by most people in the United States including black people at the time of his that he was alive and doing his work so we have several comments here one is from Grie again and says I just want to thank Trevor for his comments we need the white people to walk the walk not just pretend Councillor Shalini Baal thank you so much for being here thank you so much for being here I'm so excited that this has been inspiring and so informative especially as it pertains to our education and leadership looking forward to working together with for bold and systematic changes in all our sectors of society starting here in Amherst and then Grie again says thank you Gabrielle I am proud of you continue to be true to yourself as an Amherst high school graduate wrote just like last week or two we came out with this great book on reparations called from here to equality and you can get it at Amherst books great absolutely I just want to say that next Saturday at two o'clock we will be having a community conversation on race equity and justice this the main goal of this event is to kind of just get the core topics topics that we need to start with to find that to make these things happen. So I'm hoping that you can all come. The webinar can only host 100 people. And last I looked it was at 46. So if you're interested, please go to the town website at amherstma.gov. And under news and announcements, you will find the link to it and sign up to register. So what time is it? It's at two o'clock. Next Saturday, the 11th. Can I just underscore what Gabrielle said about the importance of not bifurcating and putting these issues in silos? All of this is of a piece, racial justice and health equity and climate change. We really have to look at it in a comprehensive way and not pit one one passion against the other that it really has to be brought together in order to fully realize anything. I think you can't you can't compromise with yourself. You can compromise with other people. You can compromise on plans. But you can't compromise with yourself and you shouldn't compromise on ideals. Well said, Gabrielle. Are there any more comments? Anything from the audience? So, Miss Ruth Bass Green, would you like to send us off and song, please? Okay, the song that I chose is the song We Shall Overcome. You all know the melody to that. And so in terms of the verses, I'm not doing the whole thing because it's kind of long. But I picked out some verses that I think really do help us to realize where we are right now in our struggle and our goals to make things happen differently for us. And so I ask you to follow me as we sing together. We shall overcome. We shall. We're not afraid. The truth shall make us free. The truth shall make us free. The truth shall make us free. We shall live in peace. So, we shall live in peace. So, stop that from off scripted. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Be safe. Be safe, everyone. Bye. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you. Bye. Bye. But the door was locked. Thanks, Sean.