Part 1:

Quote 1: “But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.—The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn”

Paraphrase: Douglass speaks on enslaved African Americans experiencing inequality and injustice

Response: Douglass’s message connects to the current lives.Similar to the BLM movement, the unfairness and police brutality towards African American people. Those against the movement fail to understand that them not supporting reveals the immeasurable distance between both communities. Not everyone should be one-sided towards a certain situation because the other side could’ve or developed pain brought against them from the situation.

Quote 2: “What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength, than such arguments would imply.”

Paraphrase: Arguments over such situations wouldn’t change but just worsen the system.

Response: Douglass asked rhetorical questions whether or not he should argue on the topics on inequality and injustice.

Part 2:

Quote 1: “What, to the American slave, is your 4th 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. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless…”

Identify the writing strategy you see Douglass using: Douglass discussed what it felt like to see how the celebration of the 4th of july is with the truth being hidden and to know independence was not a given for people like him based on his experience or what he saw.

Explain why you find this useful, persuasive, or effective in some way: He built a connection where you find it easy to relate to. It appeals to the emotion of the reader.

Quote 2: “I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell’s Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake.”

Identify the writing strategy you see Douglass using: Douglass shared his personal experience of growing up during the war.

Explain why you find this useful, persuasive, or effective in some way: appeals to emotional aspect