A screen showed the words of Frederick Douglass’ speech || Monica Sager Enzo Silon Surin and Margaret Somer. || Monica Sager The S.U.R.E. Diversity table || Monica Sager A food truck served food. || Monica Sager Karen Long, Katheryn Long-Thurman and Patricia Long listen to the Frederick Douglass reading || Monica Sager State Rep. Jennifer Armani, District Attorney Paul Tucker and former Lynn Police Chief Kevin Copping watch as people read. || Monica Sager Select Board Vice Chair Doug Thompson reads a passage || Monica Sager Select Board Member David Grishman reads a passage || Monica Sager Select Board Member Danielle Leonard reads a passage || Monica Sager Select Board Member Mary Ellen Fletcher reads a passage. || Monica Sager Members of the community listen to the reading || Monica Sager Interim Town Administrator Gino Cuesta reads to the crowd || Monica Sager People who were going to read stood in line || Monica Sager
The community gathered at the Swampscott Town Hall Lawn on Wednesday to read and discuss Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
The reading was made possible by a Mass Humanities Grant, which provides up to $2,000 to support public readings and discussions of Frederick Douglass’ famous address across the state. Swampscott Unites Respects Embraces (S.U.R.E.) Diversity, the town of Swampscott, Swampscott Recreation, the Swampscott Historical Commission, the Nahant Historical Society and the Swampscott Public Library received the grant and hosted the event with free ice cream and a food truck.
“What makes our program especially historically significant is that for the first time, Swampscott and Nahant are recognizing the great Frederick Douglass as one of our own,” said Nancy Schultz, the chair of the Swampscott Historical Commission. “Douglass lived in Lynn during the period of 1841 to 1848, and Swampscott was a part of Lynn until 1852 and Nahant until 1853.”
Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist, writer and orator. He was one of the most prominent figures in the 19th-century African American civil rights movement.
After escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1838, Douglass became known as a leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York. He wrote three autobiographies, and he actively campaigned for the rights of freed slaves as well as for women’s suffrage.
“It is our charge now, as 21st century citizens living in a precarious moment for liberty and democracy, to digest Douglass’ words anew. Perhaps delete slavery and insert detention centers or structural racism or grinding poverty,” said State Rep. Jennifer Armini (D-Essex), who later read the first passage of Douglass’ speech.
Other readers included interim Town Administrator Gino Cresta; Select Board Members Doug Thompson, David Grishman, Danielle Leonard and Mary Ellen Fletcher; students; District Attorney Paul Tucker; Director of Aging Services Heidi Whear; and Superintendent Jason Calichman.
“We put online that we needed 60 readers. We had more than 60,” Margaret Somer, a member of S.U.R.E. Diversity, told the Swampscott Tides. “We had far more than we could even manage. The people were just so excited.”
In his Independence Day speech, Douglass looked to make abolition more acceptable to Northern white people. He delivered the speech at the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York on July 5, 1852. Around 550 people were around to hear Douglass talk.
After introducing himself, Douglass reflects on the anniversary of America’s freedom and how the country has the potential to either become great or dwindle from here. He went on to discuss the true meaning of patriotism and how the nation could be guided onto a path of growth and moral clarity.
He argued that the country must be scathingly honest about slavery and its immorality in order to awaken and progress, noting that Independence Day often serves as a cover-up for the nation’s painful past.
Douglass ends his speech by saying that the Constitution does not support slavery and that he has hope for Americans and that he believes in the fundamental ideas within the country.
Following the speech, poet Enzo Silon Surin hosted a discussion.
“I think it’s incredibly important, the timeliness of it,” Silon Surin told the Swampscott Tides. “I think this question is even more elevated now when it’s not just about what to a slave should July 4 mean, but what to us should it mean now? We’re two days away from celebrating Independence Day, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the lack of civil liberties that we’re experiencing at this point.”
Silon Surin described the gathering of over 200 people on the Town Hall Lawn as a form of quiet resistance and protest in its own right.
“I myself am not a loud person…We can write as well or even just listen and show up,” Silon Surin told the Swampscott Tides. “Democracy matters. People care about it. Soft gather – you don’t need the alarms set. You don’t need to post about it. You don’t need to trend. This is trending. This does matter. It shows that it doesn’t just matter to me. It matters to other people as well.”
The readings also did not just take place in Swampscott. Through the Mass Humanities Grant, over 60 cities across Massachusetts also participated.
“To watch it travel, I think it’s an incredible thing,” Silon Surin told the Swampscott Tides. “The timing of this again when a lot of institutions are backing away, with federal funding being taken away, they are actually pushing this so that it’s wide. It reverberates a bit more. It’s incredible.”
