Read the passage.
excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" by Frederick Douglass
"Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY."
Question:
Refer to Explorations in Literature for a complete version of this speech.
Which statement best describes Douglass's purpose?
A) to celebrate the promise of freedom and liberty on the Fourth of July
B) to call attention to the shame and horrors of American slavery
C) to remember those who are still enslaved
D) to embarrass and ridicule his audience for their celebrations