One hundred and sixty years after Frederick Douglass stood at Washington Hall — now the site of Veterans Mall — to demand a more perfect union, his words returned to Main Street to inspire a new generation. On Saturday, in celebration of Black History Month and to commemorate Douglass’ birth and death, community members gathered at the LAVA Center to read and reflect on Frederick Douglass’s iconic speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
The event — subtitled by the LAVA Center as “Reading and Responding Together in Greenfield” — was guest-hosted by Providence-based poet and performer Marlon Carey, who has virtually worked with the LAVA Center since 2020. Saturday was his first time in Greenfield.
“I’m honored to be here,” Carey said.
The event was sponsored by Mass Humanities, an organization within the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Since 2009, Mass Humanities has issued “Reading Frederick Douglass Together” grants, which sponsor public readings of an abridged version of Douglass’ famous speech.
Guests Nate Woodard and Nina Gross also headlined the event. Woodard, a Greenfield High School senior and co-chair of the Greenfield Human Rights Commission, said that Saturday’s reading was “about empowerment, and being together in community, celebrating Black History Month.”
“We strive to be together, and to make community members feel represented,” Woodard added.
Nina Gross, a local poet and musician, echoed the community-building aspect of the event. “It’s super important to build community,” Gross said, adding that we draw “strength from past icons, like Frederick Douglass, on whose shoulders we stand.”
Gross added that the reading came at a time of political turbulence in America. “We want to build people’s spirits, to keep us strong as the blows come, so we have a chance to line up to the promise of America.”
The reading
The event began with a land acknowledgement delivered by Gross, which segued into Carey’s introduction for the afternoon. He began by leading the audience in a call-and-response chant, repeating an African phrase that translates to “there is no room for hatred.” Beating a cajon — a box drum of Peruvian origin, often used in Afro-Peruvian music — Carey provided rhythm as Nina Gross joined in the musical introduction, singing “Guide My Feet,” an African-American spiritual, the audience singing along.
After the introduction, Carey spoke to the importance of looking back on history. “We look back because the past is unfinished conversation,” Carey said. “We look back so courage is not lost, so warnings are not ignored, so victories hard won are not quietly undone.”
Carey acknowledged that the day’s event was not simply a reading of history, but a “retrieving” of it, in order to help “the young people of today carry the baton.” Carey used this to segue into Woodard’s speech.
Woodard delivered a speech focused on youth empowerment in the political system, invoking Douglass at various points.
“Douglass was young when he risked his life to escape slavery,” Woodard said. “And he was still young when he [started] speaking out against slavery, in front of crowds who doubted him, threatened him and tried to silence him.”
Woodard added that while every age has its unique battles, it also produces a new wave of leaders like Douglass who are ready to push boundaries. To him, the issue isn’t a lack of youthful influence, but whether those young people choose to wield it.
Following Woodard’s speech, he read Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem.” Then, Gross read three original poems, all relating to American politics. The first poem read, titled “Hook, Line, and Sinker,” was inspired by California senator Adam Schiff, particularly the words he spoke on the fourth day of the Jan. 6 hearings in 2022, when he served in the House of Representatives.
After the poetry readings, Carey set the scene of Douglass’s speech for the audience, describing the conditions in Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, where the speech was delivered in 1852. He directed those seated in the audience to act as though they were in Corinthian Hall that day, as about a dozen other audience members lined up to each read a part of the speech.
Carey, who has worked in slam poetry spaces in his career, wanted the speech to be read almost as a “group slam poem.”
“Part of the grant is that the reading should be interactive,” Carey said, which gave him the thought that “we’re all going to become Frederick Douglass. You could see the speakers become him, and get into it more as it went on.”
After the speech was finished — with each audience participant going up to the mic multiple times — there was a 15-minute intermission, during which audience members could write things that give them hope, which were then attached to a paper cut-out of a tree.
Following intermission, there was a discussion of the speech itself, and how it felt for audience members to both perform and hear it. Many remarked on how the speech — which describes the horror and injustice of chattel slavery in America — felt increasingly relevant to current day America.
The event closed with a song performed by Gross, “Hold On (Here Comes the Dawn),” written by Heidi Wilson. The song became a popular refrain at protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Jan Maher, development director and board member of the LAVA Center, produced the event, and was thrilled that Carey, Gross and Woodard were able to join the reading.
“This is a place where people can hear voices that are not always heard,” Maher said. “And come together under the common commitment to social justice issues.”