July 1, 1997
Contact: Louise Snider
Media Advisory: 4th of July Story Ideas--Facts, Fiction, and Meaning
For a sparkling interview, contact one of SDSU's most dynamic and colorful history professors, Dr. William Cheek (phone: 287-4268), who has provided these provocative thoughts about our national holiday:
We celebrate the wrong day.
The actual day of American independence is July 2, 1776, when the Continental Congress passed the resolution for independence. Congress approved the Declaration of Independence two days later.
African-Americans celebrated a different holiday.
In 1805, a crowd in Philadelphia celebrating the "Fourth" drove blacks from the square. Three years later, blacks established their own annual festival for January 1, the day in 1808 when the prohibition of the slave trade took effect.
The Declaration of Independence should be viewed as a collective document, rather than the work of one man,Thomas Jefferson.
The Declaration of Independence went through several drafts before being accepted by Congress. Delegates compressed the original statement drafted by Jefferson in anger and haste, cutting large sections and, ultimately, producing a clearer, more persuasive document.
The meaning of the Declaration of Independence for our time.
The Declaration of Independence contains two powerful implications: 1) The individual is the sovereign unit, equal with and independent of everyone else. 2) Any restrictions on a person's pursuit of life, liberty and happiness are in some sense violations of what the Creator intended.
This idea of human equality could be extended far beyond the society of white male property owners for whom Jefferson and the Congress wrote. It could be extended to the powerless poor, to enslaved blacks, to women, to gays, to children. The redemption of the promise of the Declaration of Independence has been a central theme of American history. The principle embodied in that document can serve as the ideal basis for a truly democratic and multicultural America
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