"The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro"

"The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" by Frederick Douglass was a speech that he wrote, presented to a white audience on the fifth of the July. The few paragraphs in the excerpt that I was given to read made it hard to distinguish whether it was, in fact, a realism work of prose. This part of the speech criticisms the white Americans' enslavement of the Negros. He says that all the Americans celebrating the fourth are basically hypocrites. "What, to the American slave, is your fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim." (Douglass 337). If anything, I would categorize this speech as a Naturalism work. The main people being featured are the black slaves, a poor class governed mainly by Social Darwinism. The bitter tone of this reflects the harsh treatment of the slaves. Douglass is thinking about the psychological aspect of Naturalism and how human nature affects the world. He does not say it directly, but it can be inferred that he thinks the white peoples' nature is responsible for their harsh treatment of the black slaves. Apparently it is also in their nature to be whining hypocrites. "Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." (Douglass 337). The "Hero" of this fits best with naturalism, when making Douglass himself the hero. He was from the lowest of the lower classes of society, but rose to higher levels through self-education and his own hard work. He was the ideal hero of the time period.

This could also be given the blanket title of Realism for a few reasons. The first major reason is the amount of detail that Douglass puts into describing how the blacks feel and describing the white peoples' personalities. He uses many synonyms to describe both, such as "bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy" (Douglass 337) to describe the feelings of the whites in rationalizing slavery. This could also be categorized as a Realism work because it was obviously a historical event that actually happened. Therefore, the criteria of the events described actually being able to happen applies in this case. Realism also used the plain everyday speech of the time (Campbell). This is evident in "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro". Douglass uses some pretentious language, but as he is holding his white audience in contempt, this is understandable.

I did not really see any characteristics of Regionalism in "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro". Douglass may have incorporated aspects of Regionalism later in his speech, but not in this excerpt. He makes no mention of the sectional differences, other than those between blacks and whites, which was present in basically any region of that time. There was also no detectable dialect of any sort in his writing and a considerable lack of dialogue, which was also a characteristic of Regionalism.


Campbell, Donna M. "Realism in American Literature." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. 21 Mar. 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2011. http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm

Douglass, Frederick. "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." American Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 337. Print.