321 BFW Team Favorite: Whose Fourth of July?

Ben Franklin's World

Liz Covart

History, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2022

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech to an anti-slavery society and he famously asked “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” In this episode, we explore Douglass’ thoughtful question within the context of Early America: What did the Fourth of July mean for African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? To help us investigate this question, we are joined by Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, and Christopher Bonner, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maryland. This episode originally posted as Episode 277. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/321 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 018: Danielle Allen, Our Declaration 🎧 Episode 119: Steve Pincus, The Heart of the Declaration 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution’s African American Soldiers 🎧 Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth 🎧 Episode 255: Martha S. Jones, Birthright Citizens REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
0:04.0	Ben Franklin's World is a production of the Omahaundrow Institute, and is sponsored by
0:09.0	the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
0:11.0	Hello and welcome to episode 321 of Ben Franklin's World.
0:24.7	The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people and events of our
0:29.2	really American past have shaped the present day world we live in.
0:33.1	And I'm your host, Liz Covart.
0:36.4	Friend, I'm sorry to say I got caught in the latest COVID surge.
0:41.4	Tim and I both caught COVID in early January, and we're feeling much better now, but that
0:45.9	virus really put me out of commission for the better part of two weeks.
0:49.9	So this is why I'm rerunning one of my favorite episodes from 2020.
0:54.0	It was our fourth of July episode that year.
0:56.2	It's called Who's Fourth of July?
0:58.7	Now, I really enjoyed producing episode 277 by friend, Jeff Brown of the Retali
1:04.4	podcast and Adam McNeil, who's a really talented young historian and podcaster.
1:09.7	They both let me their voice acting skills so that we could hear passages from the decoration
1:14.4	of independence and from an 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass.
1:19.0	Plus, we also had the chance to hear from and learn from to really brilliant historians.
1:25.4	Martha Jones of Johns Hopkins University and Christopher Bonner of the University of Maryland.
1:31.2	Together, we take you through the story of what the fourth of July has meant for early
1:35.2	African-Americans and some of the ways that black Americans have fought for and seized
1:39.8	their citizenship and rights as United States citizens.
	...

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