Easy A: meaningful actions in five minutes or less

Watch This: Frederick Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”

Jun 25, 2026 | Easy A

250 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, putting to paper the American ideals of freedom, equality, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what did this declaration mean for indigenous and enslaved people in America?

Any honest commemoration of July 4th must recognize the true history of the time – between one third to two thirds of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were enslavers. Some British called out the founding fathers for their hypocrisy, and 76 years later, so did formerly enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

In 1852, the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society – yes, women have been organizing for good for a long time! – invited Frederick Douglass to give the keynote address at their Independence Day event. There he delivered, “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” now also referred to as, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”

Douglass pointed out the hypocrisy of celebrating the Declaration of Independence while still enslaving people, and called upon America to make freedom a reality for all.

Earn your Easy A this week by watching James Earl Jones read some of the address:

Slavery has ended, but we still have a lot of work to do to fully live up to the promise of America outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Come back next week to honor America’s 250th by taking action!

Subscribe to Easy A

Recent Posts

Do This: Participate in Banned Books Week

Unite Against Book Bans, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA), hosts Banned Books Week every year. This year’s Banned Books Week starts in just a few days and runs from October 4 to 10. More than 4,200 books were challenged in 2025, and we need to...

Watch This: How book banners are threatening librarians

If you were asked to list dangerous jobs in America, you might think of firefighters, power line workers, or maybe people in construction. But librarians? In a recent survey, U.S. library workers reported more than 8,200 traumatic incidents in their jobs, ranging from...

Read This: Book banners are coming for librarians

A federal judge just ruled that librarians can now be arrested and criminally charged in Arkansas for providing access to certain books. This is the latest phase in the nationwide book banning movement that our friends at PEN America have been tracking since 2021....

Do This: Look up data centers where you live

Data centers are popping up all over the country, but the majority of Americans don’t want them in our community. That’s because we know that data centers pollute our air, use up our water supply, and increase our electricity bills — all without adding anything to the...

Watch This: Living Next to a Data Center

There are more than 4,000 data centers in the U.S. That’s a lot, and the more we use the internet and AI, the more that number will grow. Still, many of us don’t know much about the impact of data centers if we haven’t personally experienced them in our own community....