{"id":278084,"date":"2026-09-03T10:56:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T10:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/278084\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T10:56:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T10:56:38","slug":"newton-free-library-reading-frederick-douglass-together-july-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/278084\/","title":{"rendered":"Newton Free Library: Reading Frederick Douglass Together, July 29"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newtonfreelibrary.net\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Newton Free Library<\/a> (330 Homer Street, Newton Centre) presents <a href=\"https:\/\/newtonfreelibrary.libcal.com\/event\/16976775\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Reading Frederick Douglass Together<\/a> on Wednesday, July 29 at 6:30PM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Come gather in community to read and discuss Frederick Douglass\u2019 famous address, \u201cWhat to the Slave is the Fourth of July?\u201d At Reading Frederick Douglass Together, attendees will read, listen to, and reflect on the speech in an interactive program facilitated by Newton Families Organizing for Racial Justice (FORJ).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This program will feature readings of Douglass\u2019s anti-slavery address by community members, followed by a facilitated discussion with Dr. Melissa Berry-Woods, connecting Douglass\u2019s denunciations of slavery and forceful examination of the Constitution with contemporary lived experiences of people across the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among the readers will be City and State elected officials, scholars, and community leaders, including Tamika Olszewski (Newton School Committee), Randy Johnson (Newton Parks &amp; Recreation Commission), and Dr. Melissa Berry-Woods (Bunker Hill Community College). All are invited to add their voice!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You are welcome to volunteer to read, participate in the discussion, or attend to listen and reflect. No registration is needed to attend the event. If you want to read a portion of the speech aloud, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/forms.gle\/5h6qhpGB8Kx3KEtQA\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">sign up to be a reader<\/a>. After you sign up, members of FORJ will reach out to you with the portion of the address you will be reading and advice on presenting your portion of the speech. However you participate, attendees are encouraged to reflect together on the themes of the speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newton Free Library (330 Homer Street, Newton Centre) presents Reading Frederick Douglass Together on Wednesday, July 29 at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-278084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}