Reading Frederick Douglass’s Speech, and Panel Discussion
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
July 4th • Video available online, discussion begins at minute 47
“Thank you so much for holding this discussion today. I can’t think of a better way to honor our country than to have faith that it is strong enough to be improved by ensuring that the rights outlined in our Constitution can truly be equally enjoyed by all. Discussions like these help inspire people to work towards that goal.”
– Rebecca Pearson Lo
“Thank you for this. Your beautiful reading on the 4th fills me with hope every year.”
– Katherine Thursto
“Thank you so much for hosting this reading and discussion. This was very meaningful and I will be reflecting on it over the coming days and weeks.”
– Elizabeth Frank
![Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? We have you covered with a little Robbins house trivia. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem entitled Peter’s Field. Peter’s Field most likely referenced Peter Hutchinson, who was the last African American owner of The Robbins House. Peter purchased the home in 1852 and lived with his wife, Nancy, and several of their children in the home until 1868. Emerson described Peter’s farm, and by extension the original area of farmland attached to The Robbins House out in the Great Field like this:
KNOWS he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?]
That field by spirits bad and good,
By Hell and Heaven is haunted,
And every rood in the hemlock wood
I know is ground enchanted.
[In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts:
I wandered up,
I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
For in those lonely grounds the sun
Shines not as on the town,
In nearer arcs his journeys run,
And nearer stoops the moon.
There in a moment I have seen
The buried Past arise;
The fields of Thessaly grew green,
Old gods forsook the skies.
Happy Reading!](https://robbinshouse.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)