Frederick Douglass’ 200th birthday celebrated at Marshall University

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — As part of its Black History Month programming, Marshall University’s Dr. Carter G. Woodson Lyceum put on a 200th birthday celebration for renowned activist Frederick Douglass on Wednesday afternoon and had an actor re-enact one of his most famous speeches.

Professor Robert Levine of the University of Maryland gave a presentation on Douglass, and actor Phil Darius Wallace portrayed Douglass in a performance of “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” a speech Douglass gave in 1852 to a crowd of abolitionists in Rochester, New York.