
On This Day: Frederick Douglass in Philadelphia
The Pennsylvania Freeman reported on an address given by 26-year-old Frederick Douglass at Independence Square in Philadelphia on Aug. 22, 1844.
“At first he seemed embarrassed and spoke with some hesitancy; but soon his embarrassment disappeared; his heart began to play, and he poured forth a stream of glowing thought and thrilling eloquence which, coming from an unlettered colored man, seemed to many of the audience utterly amazing. They could scarcely believe him when he said that he was still a slave, and liable at any moment, under the constitution and laws of the country, to be sent back to hopeless bondage. How a man not six years freed from the yoke, and never having been, as he said, a single day to school in his life, should exhibit such a command of language and force of thought, they were utterly at a loss to imagine.
… The stand which Douglass occupied was close by the old Hall in which the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and he made one or two allusions to this circumstance with thrilling effect. He gave them, also, his “Slaveholder’s Sermon,” and, full of cutting sarcasm as it was, it was received with enthusiastic applause. He only spoke for about an hour, orders having been given, as a precaution against a riot, to close the gates at 7 o’clock.”

Note: Kerry Gleason is the author of an unproduced, award-winning screenplay about the life of Frederick Douglass.