Legendary actor James Earl Jones has died at the age of 93. He took on iconic blockbuster roles like Darth Vader in “Star Wars” and Mufasa in “The Lion King” and is also remembered for films like “The Great White Hope” and “Matewan,” about the 1920 coal miners’ strike in West Virginia. Though he became well known for his commanding, booming voice, James Earl Jones overcame a stutter that he said was so debilitating as a child, he sometimes pretended to be nonverbal. In 2003, Jones read the Frederick Douglass speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” during a performance of “Voices of a People’s History of the United States,” which was co-edited by Howard Zinn.

James Earl Jones: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim.”

Click here to see more of this performance of a People’s History of the United States.