"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” Frederick Douglass asked that question to the Ladies’ Antislavery Society in Rochester, New York on July 5, 1852. But why July 5th? The first Fifth of July public celebration in New York City happened in 1827, the year that New York legally abolished slavery. But in the lead up to the day, there were testy debates about how to mark emancipation that spilled into public view on the pages of the nation’s first Black owned newspaper, Freedom’s Journal. While it was a messy exchange, it was an essential. debate full of agency.

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