“The Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” These were Frederick Douglass’ unyielding words from his “Fifth of July Speech”* to the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester’s Corinthian Hall in 1852.
Douglass had been asked to speak on Independence Day but with entrenched slavery supported by the recently adopted Fugitive Slave law, how could he?
After all, he declared with authority, “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and natural justice, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, extended to us… I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary.” [Read more…] about 1852: Frederick Douglass and the July 5th Movement
After moving to Binghamton from the City of New York in 1911, Fred C. Hazel’s 
“Al Marlowe, ‘the French Cyclone,’ returned yesterday from Alburg, Vt. where he wrestled Leo Desbriches, champion of the New England states, to a draw…. The Ogdensburg man is proving himself one of the best wrestlers in this section….”
“A Negro Elected President of the Village of Cleveland.”
“Hear us, thou delver in unrighteousness.” This was part of a warning notice posted on a home’s front door in Neversink, Sullivan County, as published in the New York Herald on April 22, 1889.
