After listening and reading Douglass’ speech I believe he is arguing how the 4th of july is not a holiday for him to celebrate, the people included in the independence of the U.S. are the pale “I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary” (5). The U.S. independence only benefited the white people in where darkness became “sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me”(8). Slaves were not included in the declaration of independence which is a hypocritical celebration for a non-white person to celbrate. Throughout the speech Douglass argues about the declaration of Independence only including white people; he and his people are not included since they have no freedom. The fore-fathers fought for the freedom of its people and the 13 colonies, putting their private needs aside in order for America to succeed, but now in the present African Americans are slaves having no liberty and no choice in their life, slave owners in America have robbed their freedom. He asked to speak on the 4th of JUly seeing it as an insult because while Americans enjoy their freedom African Americans suffer daily, and even kids are mistreated by the whites. The point Douglass gets across is that the 4-th of july is not a holiday for African Americans to celebrate, because they had no freedom, being owned by slave owners being treated as objects with no importance. 

Quote- “The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me” (8).

Paraphrase- What makes you happy, kills me. 

Explain- This quote helps illustrate Douglass’ problem because he talks about how America getting its freedom and succeeding caused African Americans to suffer and many of African Americans died when being transported on ships when coming to the U.S. and others were killed by Americans. Americans were happy, because of African Americans being brought as slaves and put to work it helped the economy, but brought darkness into slaves lives.