Frederick Douglass, Shakespearean, & the Birth-Pangs of Social Change
I was born on the 5th of July, thankfully missing by just a day the opportunity to have the line from the patriotic and vacuous George M. Cohen song, “I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” applied to my birth: I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy A Yankee Doodle, do or die A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam Born on the Fourth of July I've got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart She's my Yankee Doodle joy Yankee Doodle came to London Just to ride the ponies I am the Yankee Doodle Boy Instead, I am pleased to know that this date also marks the historic occasion of Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" given to the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in the state of New York. [ Image of Frederick Douglass from Wikipedia . Image of Romans 8:18 from Archive.org, The Bishops Bible, 1568, which the 1599 Geneva translation renders, "For I count that the afflictions of this present time are not worthy of the glory, which shall be showed un...