An audience gathered on the Natick Common last month to commemorate and celebrate Juneteenth.

Abraham Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation ostensibly freed enslaved people in rebelling states in the early 1850s. Though in practice, Lincoln’s executive order was slow to take purchase, especially so in the deep south.

Indeed, word of their freedom didn’t reach enslaved people in parts of Texas until two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered. 

That day, June 19th of 1865, has been adopted as an Independence Day for the African American community since the 1890s. The holiday was federalized as recently as 2021, and Natick has since been hosting and honoring the day.

As part of the commemoration and tradition, a slate of diverse speakers read aloud Frederick Douglass’ famous speech from July 5th, 1865. In that discourse, the former slave offered a biting critique of the values espoused by Americans’ celebration of Independence Day.

“What to the slave is the Fourth of July,” is the name that speech is known by today.

A sound system amplified the voices of speakers under blue skies and shade of trees on the Natick Common. Giving voice to the words of Douglass, they ranged from grade-school to retirement age.

“I didn’t know too much about the speech,” said Natick resident Bruno Giles. “Not a lot of people do.”

Wrote Douglass, read by Giles: “I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me, the American slave trade is a terrible reality. I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder.” 

In addition to reading passages of the Douglass speech, Giles also performed in his locally-famous drum circle following the recitations. It was Giles’ third year reading Douglass’ words at the event.

“It really is an amazing speech,” he said. “I don’t know how he could have done it.”

It was Giles who recruited fellow Natick resident Susan Massad to read a passage of Douglass’ speech at the event. Her section spoke of the incentives that perpetuated slavery.

“An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery,” wrote Douglass, “and five, when he fails to do so,” read Massad.

“We can never stop keeping the memory of Frederick Douglass alive,” said Massad after speaking before the crowd of about 100 people. “The words are more important than ever, given what we’re facing.”

Bob Awkward read from Douglass’ oratory also, one of about 30 speakers that day. His identity as an African American made participating particularly poignant. Awkward’s section of the speech invoked Douglass’ critique of slavery against the backdrop of Independence Day.

“Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it.”      

Awkward said he feels conflicted about the Fourth of July, just as he’s felt of two minds about his place as an American. He feels a part of (yet apart from) the celebration and country. For him, Juneteenth encapsulates that complicated relationship.

“We don’t get to celebrate in any meaningful way,” he said. “I was raised on baseball, McDonalds and American pie,” said Awkward, now past middle age. “This is my country.” But  “It’s so painful the way America has treated us.”