Last week, Newton celebrated the nation’s 249^th birthday. This weekend, you can examine that birthday through the lens of slavery and abolitionism.

On Sunday at 2 p.m., Historic Newton will host a public reading of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” at the Jackson Homestead, 527 Washington St.

All are welcome and encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets. There will also be a small group discussion and activities, and museum admission will be free.

“I think it’s really powerful for people to participate in,” said Allison Pagliaro, director of education for Historic Newton.

Douglass’s iconic speech talks about how for enslaved Black people, seeing white Americans celebrate their independence from Great Britain while continuing to hold black people in bondage shows that “your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless.”

Historic Newton hosted a reading two previous times, in 2016 and 2021, and Pagliaro hopes it can become an annual event.

“I want people to think about the historic context but also think about how Douglass’s words can apply to their own lives,” she said.

One of the activities will be zine making, which is making a small pamphlet, based on the content of the speech. People can make their own individual one, but they can also participate in a community zine that will be displayed at the Jackson Homestead for the rest of the month.

There will also be an opportunity to create a star to be part of an American flag display run by Diane Kemsley, a Newton resident who has been bringing her “50 Stars Beloved” project to different Newton events.

“It’s about asking what does pride in the flag or in our country mean?” said Pagliaro.

The Jackson Homestead was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and the museum has exhibits about this. Pagliaro hopes that by it being free, people who otherwise would not visit will learn about the history of anti-slavery work in Newton.

Douglass himself was born into slavery in Maryland. His first escape attempt in 1837 was unsuccessful. He got to the North in 1838 via actual railroad (and steamboat). He and his wife Anna, who was a free black woman, settled in New Bedford, and then Lynn.

Douglass spoke at numerous anti-slavery events in Massachusetts and elsewhere. His “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech was given on July 5 in Rochester, N.Y.

He was especially frustrated by Christian clergy who ignored or even supported the horrors of slavery, which he saw as anti-Christian.

Douglass was also aggravated by people who were opposed to a country with slaveholders, yet who saw the Constitution as inherently pro-slavery. He thought dissolving the Union to end slavery was equivalent to destroying a city because it had thieves in it, and that the best way to secure rights for enslaved people as guaranteed by the Constitution was through the continued existence of the Union.

“I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong,” he wrote.

Initially, Douglass was worried his former captor would try to get him back, and as many escaped slaves did, he went to Ireland to preach against slavery there. (Slavery was illegal in Britain and its colonies by this time, but there were activists working to end slavery elsewhere as well as the purchase of goods made by slaves, like American cotton).

This was in 1845, at the beginning of the Great Famine. Douglass was shocked by the levels of poverty he saw in Dublin where conditions for some were as poor as American slaves.

“Though I am more closely connected and identified with one class of outraged, oppressed and enslaved people, I cannot allow myself to be insensible to the wrongs and sufferings of any part of the great family of man,” he wrote to William Lloyd Garrison, who published the Boston anti-slavery newspaper, “The Liberator.”

Douglass spent two years in Ireland and England, wherein his supporters purchased his freedom. While they urged him to stay in England, he felt like he could not stay overseas while three million Black people were still enslaved in the United States.

Douglass returned home in 1847, shortly after the death of his friend and Irish nationalist Daniel O’Connell.

Historic Newton is hosting this event in conjunction with Newton Cultural Development, and it is being sponsored by Mass Humanities, which is providing grants to communities around the state to support public readings of Douglass’s speech.