Frederick Douglas, a leading Abolitionist and celebrated civil rights leader, was born in Maryland in 1818. As a child, Douglass secretly learned to read and write (it was against the law for a slave to do so). After escaping to freedom in 1838, he devoted himself to the Abolitionist cause. A brilliant speaker, Douglass drew upon his own personal struggles to drive home his anti-slavery message. In this speech, delivered at the invitation of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass powerfully illustrates the hypocrisy of asking a slave to celebrate the 4th of July.