A public reading of one of the 19^th century’s most famous speeches will take place at noon on July 3^rd, 2018, at the Strawbery Banke Museum Visitor’s Center in Portsmouth.

“What to the Slaves is the Fourth of July?” asked Frederick Douglass in 1852.

Douglass, one of our nation’s greatest orators and abolitionists, was asked to speak at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

People of all ages and different walks of life are asked to gather at noon at the Tyco Visitor Center on Hancock Street to take turns reading parts of the speech until the entire speech has been read.

In his provocative speech, Douglass said, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” And he asked, “Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?”

Douglass’s speech remains emotionally powerful and thought-provoking more than a century and a half after he gave it.