The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro

Written by the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass the work The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro is best classified as a naturalistic peace for several reasons. Combining his bleak outlook on the holiday with cynical tendencies and his realistic and bleak outlook on the holiday for the average black man in America. Due to the prejudice and racism against blacks during this time period whites and blacks were kept separate and most blacks were no better than slaves working on plantations at this time. Slavery was still being practice in the southern United States and equality was non-existent in the northern states.

Naturalism is well known for it's approach to the bleak and realistic outlook of life, usually set in the cities in the bleak underbellies of spanning metropolises, but with primary characteristics being it's cynical outlook on life. As Sommers writes "A product of the late 19th century and sometimes seen as an extension of or successor to realism, naturalism was a literary movement based on the writings of the scientist Charles Darwin, author of Origin of Species (1859). More specifically, naturalist authors were largely interested in maintaining Darwin's suppositions that human beings were soulless creatures, "merely higher-order animals," bereft of free will, whose mannerisms and behavior resulted primarily from their heredity and the influences of a capricious environment (qt. in Abrams 261)." This quality of the story is evidence in several quotes throughout Douglass's writings especially in the quote "The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?" This quotation shows contempt for the white men who seek to hold Douglass down and deny his people their rights, and demonstrates his thoughts that men are no better than animals in their foolish selective treatment of their fellow man do to a simplistic trait like skin color is demonstrative of his naturalistic style.

These fearsome quotes by Douglass, that withhold his rage and contempt for those who hold back his people and deny them their equality demonstrates his naturalistic style. Although their is no real setting to this piece do to it being a speech, the primary and necessary characteristics of Naturalism are present and identifiable grouping this piece in with other naturalistic writings. Douglass and his fellow African Americans are denied their rights to the American Dream and their opportunity for the Pursuit of Happiness based on their skin color, and Douglass writes this piece centralized around the idea of how miserable watching others celebrate their freedom is for the average black person. Without touching too much on other topic aside from human equality Douglass was able to masterfully weave his charismatic speech into a naturalistic style to invoke empathy from readers and listeners of his work.





Frederick, Douglass. "Africans in America/Part 4/Frederick Douglass Speech." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. .

Sommers, Joseph Michael. "naturalism." In Maunder, Andrew. Facts On File Companion to the British Short Story. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CBSS450&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 8, 2011).