What did freedom look like in early America? On July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence to lay out the reasons why the thirteen British American colonies decided to declare independence from Great Britain: Freedom and Equality. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day commemoration entitled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” This video pairs excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and Frederick Douglass’s speech, encouraging viewers to reflect on what freedom means to them HERE.