Are you a teen or community leader who is passionate about antiracism, human rights, and the Black Lives Matter movement? Bring your voice to a community reading of Frederick Douglass' 1852 speech, "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Sign up to be a reader using this form.

The Read will take place on Sunday, June 26th at 6:00pm on the front steps of the Morse Institute Library in Natick. Each reader will then have the opportunity to read 1-3 paragraphs from the speech, which is about thirty minutes in total. The event will be filmed by local cable station Natick Pegasus.

Historian Brenna Greer will deliver opening remarks and hold an informal dialogue about the speech after the reading.

This event is free and open to the public, co-hosted by the Natick Historical Society and Natick for Black Lives Matter. Please practice social distancing, and bring your own chair or blanket. Bathrooms at the Morse Institute Library will NOT be open. **

This program is made possible by a grant from Mass Humanities, which provided funding through "A More Perfect Union," a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.