On July 5, 1852 at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address at an Independence Day celebration.

Douglass asked: “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

The celebrated orator was the most photographed American in the 19th century.

For an African American in 2026, “[t]his Fourth of July is yours, not mine, You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

President Trump turned the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence into a circus, casting himself as the ringmaster. The circus sideshow includes cage fighters, an algae-plagued Reflecting Pool, and the not-so Great American State Fair.

In celebration of Frederick Douglass and the 5th of July, I will press on and “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!”