‘What To The Slave Is the Fourth of July?’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass’ Speech
ROLE: Producer, Videographer, Editor | AWARDS: Edward R. Murrow - Excellence in Video (2021) & Webby, Diversity & Inclusion (2021)
Our team had an intuition that Independence Day would feel different in 2020. Just a few months before, police killed George Flloyd and protests rippled across the nation. Between Juneteenth and July 4th 2020, we asked five young Douglass descendants— ages 12 to 20 — to read and respond to excerpts of his historic speech: “What To The Slave Is The Fourth of July?”
We published the piece on July 3. It was viewed over 6.5 million times across platforms in the first week. All Things Considered adapted it into a radio story for millions of listeners. Outlets from CNN to People to The Root covered the video. Jamie Foxx, Lena Waithe and Chris Bosh ripped and reposted the full video on Instagram.
The video was a collaboration across NPR departments — Visuals and Code Switch— and greatly benefitted from external collaborators. Independent filmmaker Quincy Ledbetter co-produced and Jennifer Crandall provided inspiration for and guidance to the project. Crandall’s project Whitman, Alabama also connects the past and present through a central text by inviting an array of Alabamians to recite passages from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.