Carrboro Mayor Barbara Foushee is pleased to announce that the Town of Carrboro will hold its 12th Annual Community Reading of the Frederick Douglass essay “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” on Friday, July 4, 2025.
The reading will occur from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Carrboro Century Center, 100 N. Greensboro St. Introductory remarks will be provided by Mayor Foushee with the keynote address given by Mike Wiley, a North Carolina-based actor, playwright, and director of multiple works in documentary theatre. Wiley is an M.F.A. graduate and Distinguished Alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a former Lehman-Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. Wiley’s overriding goal is expanding cultural awareness for audiences of all ages through dynamic portrayals based on pivotal moments in African-American history. The Town of Carrboro would like to thank the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP and the Town of Chapel Hill for their support of this community program.
About the Frederick Douglass Speech and Community Reading
“What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” posed Frederick Douglass to a gathering of 500-600 abolitionists in Rochester, N.Y., on July 5, 1852. Admission to the speech was 12 cents, and the crowd at the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society was enthusiastic, voting unanimously to endorse the speech at its end. This speech would be remembered as one of the most poignant addresses by Douglass, a former slave turned statesman. Douglass gave it on July 5, refusing to celebrate the Fourth of July until all slaves were emancipated…