BFW Revisited: Whose Fourth of July?

Ben Franklin's World

Liz Covart

History, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2026

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 | BookShow 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 NewsSUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubTAKE THE QUIZ🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quizLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you enjoy Bizarre True Stories, then the useless information podcast is the podcast for you.
0:05.5	For example, did you know that author Robert Louis Stevenson gave his birthday away?
0:09.5	Or that there was a football team that played for six years before someone realized that the school never, ever existed,
0:15.4	or that a dog in upstate New York was once placed on trial for murder?
0:20.2	Well, to hear these and hundreds of additional fascinating true stories from the flipside
0:24.0	history, be sure to check out the useless information podcast.
0:27.8	That's the useless information podcast, podcasting worldwide since 2008, and available on
0:33.6	Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now.
0:37.7	Be sure to check it out.
0:40.3	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:44.2	Ben Franklin's World is a production of Cleo Digital Media.
0:47.3	And support for this episode comes from the Massachusetts Historical Society.
0:51.5	The first historical society founded in the United States in 1791.
1:03.7	Hello and welcome to Ben Franklin's World Revisited, a series of classic episodes to bring fresh
1:09.7	perspective to our latest episodes and had deeper
1:12.5	connections to our understanding of early American history. And I'm your host, Liz Covert. In episode
1:18.8	439, we explored the deceptively simple question of how do people learn about the Declaration of
1:24.8	Independence. As Emily Sniff showed us, the Declaration moved
1:28.5	through the world in 1776 as news. It was printed in newspapers, copied by hand, and shouted
1:34.8	aloud in public spaces. Now, the Continental Congress had remarkably little control over how
1:40.1	its declaration spread, which meant that it reached a remarkably wide audience. It reached
1:45.5	printers in Philadelphia and London. It reached merchants, farmers, and ministers. It also reached
	...

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