Todays discussion is Frederick Douglass and the meaning of july 4 for the negro. Manys program is one of the National Archives will present in washington and president ial libraries nationwide in celebration of the 241st anniversary of the adoption of the declaration of independence. Building is the only place to begin your july 4, as we will present our annual declaration of independence reading ceremony on independence avenue. Guests, thomas jefferson, benjamin franklin, adams,jefferson, john will read the constitution. Ceremony, there will be hands on a team of these for all ages until 4 00 p. M. Inside the National Archives building. The museum will remain open until 7 00 p. M. If you are not here in d. C. , the reading ceremony which begins at 10 a lot at 10 00 will be live streamed. We will conclude our celebratory with a noon program in this theater, discussing the sus sex resolution. The sussex resolution. The discovery of a second banks script of the declaration of the discove
He is the author of the 2016 book the lives of Frederick Douglass, halloween todays presentation will be signing copies of the book. Please welcome Professor Robert levine. [applause] thank you for the introduction tom, and my thanks to tom for organizing the event. It is a real honor to be here. My guess is you would rather hear an actor over an academic, so i will be relatively brief, five minutes. As a lot of you know, frederick born into slavery in 1818 on the Eastern Shore of maryland. For the first 20 years of his life, he was a slave moving back and forth between the Eastern Shore and baltimore. He escaped from slavery in 1838 taking a train him baltimore while dressed as a sailor and eventually made his way to new bedford, massachusetts. He worked in the shipyards there and as a minister staying relatively quiet about his antislavery views. In part because he was a fugitive slave and was afraid of being remanded back into slavery, but in 1841 he spoke out against slavery at in