This coming Thursday, June 12, 2025, at 6 pm at Luna Theater at the Lowell Community Charter Public School on Jackson Street (in the former Mill No. 5), there will be a reading of the famed speech by abolitionist Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852 on the topic, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”

The event is free and open to the public but requires advance registration. (Here’s how to do that.)

UMass Lowell history professor Bob Forrant is involved. Here is what he wrote about it:

On the 5th of July 1852, famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass stood before 600 people in Rochester, NY, and asked, ‘What to the Slave is the 4th of July?’ This coming Thursday evening, there will be an important event in Lowell, hosted by the Lowell Community Charter Public School. Faculty, students, and community members – myself included – will read Douglass’s speech, one of the most important in U.S. history. Born in 1818, Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery in 1838 and quickly became one of the abolitionist movement’s most important figures. He died in 1895 at the age of 77. The event is free and open to the public, but it is recommended that you reserve your seats. The event poster contains information on how to reserve your seats. The reading will be followed by a discussion of the significance of the speech and its meaning for today.