Each year, Mass Humanities organizes and funds free public events where communities gather together to read and talk about Frederick Douglass’ influential address, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
We began 2024 with a shared reading at UMass Amherst College of Humanities & Fine Arts. Fittingly, the gathering took place on February 14, Douglass’s chosen day of birth. As Marco, a Ph.D. student featured in the video, explains, the fact that such a reading took place during Black History Month underscores the importance of the abolitionist movement.
