The great James Earl Jones reads a short section of Frederick Douglass’s powerful 1852 speech.

To drag a man in fetters, into the grand, illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and   sacrilegious irony.  Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?  …What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?  I answer.

Rebroadcast by Amy Goodman here.   The entire speech is here.