Happy Birthday, America

[merrily]

1775 map of the seige of Boston






Paul Revere, as painted by Copley





Paul Revere's home to the left, is Hichorn House, home of Paul's cousin Ride like the wind, Paul!





Christ Church, know known as Old North Church, exterior One if by land and two if by sea






Christ Church, interior







Battle of Lexington and Concord, the shot heard 'round the world






Reading of the Declaration of Independence at the Massachusetts State House in Boston, now know as the Old State House, on July 4, 1776, a year after war started, and more recently

A recent reader




The Red Coat re-enactors The painted red line at their feet guides people through the Freedom Trail, which takes walkers from one historic Boston site to the next.




July 4 concert and fireworks on the banks of the Charles River, across from where Paul Revere waited, watching the tower of Christ Church to see if one lantern or two would appear

Happy Birthday, America!

[merrily]

1. kicking

[SwissTony]

2. Happy birthday, US of A.

Have a good one.

Take care.

[merrily]

6. Thanks. Mighty forgiving and kind, given your avatar.

You may be living among some we rather nastily drove out, who went to Canada, England and other places.

[romanic]

3. *sings*

:party

[KingCharlemagne]

4. Please allow Frederick Douglass to retort:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival....

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html

[merrily]

8. I imagine First Nations had/have an issue with it as well, but I don't know of a perfect nation on

earth. Humans are a very unsatisfactory lot.

[KingCharlemagne]

10. A very thought-provoking essay\interview about the meaning

and scope of independence (when one has finished scratching the nationalist itch):

"The Founding Fathers were more interested in limiting democracy than securing and expanding it."

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/hogeland-independence-day-american-revolution-socialist/

[merrily]

14. All the OP really says is that this is the birthday of the USA. Now you could debate that

and say it wasn't official until 1789, but that's about it. Aside from that, the OP is only visuals of historic sites.

I will bookmark that essay, but I don't idolize the Founders as some do. Although I do admire John and Abigail Adams, both individually and as a couple, and Washington as a general and as someone who declined to be President for Life. His slave owning and philandering, not so much. Thank you for the link.

[jwirr]

16. Thank you.

[66 dmhlt]

5. Thanks - I enjoyed this very much!

[merrily]

9. You're very welcome.

[treestar]

7. Nice, thank you!

[merrily]

22. You're very welcome.

I was gong to post it only in the Massachusetts Group, but, once I finished, I thought some GD posters might be interested as well. So, I cross posted.

[kentauros]

11. Happy Birthday, US of A!

And never-ending fireworks!

[font size="3"]Fireworks Noise Generator[/font]

[BumRushDaShow]

12. And this is why people keep thinking the Declaration of Independence was signed in Boston

instead of at the State House of PA.



The house where it was drafted -

[merrily]

15. My OP today is why people have been confused about where the Declaration was signed?

The declaration was read in key cities and Boston, which had been occupied by the British for a couple of years was certainly one of those key cities. It was Massachusetts John Adams who wanted Jefferson to write it, though. Other than that, it was only one place where the Declaration was read. However, the revolution did begin in Massachusetts. Philadelphia, of course, is a very historic city as well. I very much enjoyed visiting it.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Your OP is "personally" irrelevant

But the narrative is out there and has been endlessly promoted with much distortion by omission. The "revolution" (which was also fought here, literally blocks from where I live, and many other places) was not the "Declaration of Independence", which is what the "July 4th" supposedly commemorates (which probably should be July 2nd). The 3 Continental Congresses met here in Philadelphia and ratified the Declaration, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution because it was the largest city in the colonies (almost twice the size of NYC and almost 3 times the size of Boston)... plus it was a more "central" location among the 13 colonies.

I work in the area of Independence Hall and shouldn't have to hear tourists think the Declaration or Constitution was signed in Boston. I think part of the problem with the distortions of history (and more and more pronounced in the schools today) has been the over-focus on the "wars" and "battles", with little paid to the people and politics behind the decisions. People can spout off "Lexington and Concord" or "Gettysburg and Appomattox " but have difficulty connecting the dots within and between the 2 eras, and the documents that resulted.

[merrily]

18. The subject line of your prior post, a response to my OP, begins "And this is why...

So, I was trying to figure out what "this" in your subject line referred to. It seemed to refer to my OP, but there was precious little "narrative" in my OP, and none about where the declaration was signed.

My OP contained no distortion of history, just local (for me) events and pertaining to the July 4 celebration. I posted it first in the Massachusetts group, then thought people in GD might enjoy it too and some have. Sorry you see it as some sort of lie about, and competition with, Philadelphia.
Of course, the war was fought in several colonies, but it did begin in Massachusetts. And the occupation here by the British was a major precipitating factor. The constitutional convention, was earth shatteringly significant to us and the rest of the world. However, as you know, it's the Declaration of Independence, read years earlier than the Constitutional Convention, that we celebrate on July 4, not the Constitution.

I work in the area of Independence Hall and shouldn't have to hear tourists think the Declaration or Constitution was signed in Boston.

No one should have to hear errors from tourists or anyone else, for that matter, yet all of us do. Don't take it to heart.

[BumRushDaShow]

20. Hopefully you take to heart the fact that I said "narrative"

and was not making it personal. But the narrative IS pervasive. One of my biggest beefs with history-telling, and notably given this day, when while one group was declaring "freedom", it was holding another group in abject slavery, opting not to include the exhortations against slavery as promoted by England, in ironic drafts of the document by Jefferson,

Fortunately the enslaved at the time and their progeny, are finally getting some of their due.

[merrily]

21. Well, the only narrative in my OP is how the town I live in celebrates America's birthday, with

a nod to Cambridge (the other side of the Charles River) and Lexington and Concord.

And I know that slaves and First Nations have every right to feel whatever they feel, as acknowledged elsewhere on this thread. However, my post acknowledging that July 4 commemorates the anniversary of our declaration of independence from the British is probably pretty low on the list of national sins.

[BumRushDaShow]

23. "probably pretty low on the list of national sins."

And my post shows that the "honoring" itself is high on the list of national sins by some demographics.

[merrily]

24. It's a bunch of photos showing historic sites. There is no paean to America, no "honoring"

Again, it's how Boston celebrates the Fourth. And not only Boston's whites.

If you are offended by photos of historic sites and an acknowledgement that something of historic significance actually occurred on or around this date, you will not hurt my feelings by trashing the thread and/or putting me on ignore.

Considering a bunch of photos posted on GD is high on the list of America's national sins is certainly your prerogative. Obviously, I don't agree. Moreover, it kind of contradicts that your comments on this thread were not personal. I am, after all, the only person who posted the OP.

BTW, nice photo of the liberty bell Paul Revere made. Sorry about his workmanship/engineering, though.

[Glassunion]

13. Am I the only one who thinks Paul Revere looks a bit like Jack Black?

[merrily]

19. No, you are not. Maybe Jack Black shoud go on one of the TV shows that trace the ancestry of

celebrities and see if he is descended from Old Paul. I haven't been to the Revere House on April 19 (the anniversary of Paul Revere's ride) or July 4 lately, but when I did go, there was a re-enactor who also looked remarkably like Paul. He took his job very seriously and learned a huge amount of history about colonial times, Revere and the revolution. He'd give a lecture, then take questions. His answers were so complete and interesting, the questioning would continue until the time for the next lecture, so he was on his feet for hours without a break. They called him Iron Man. Anyway, he, too, might be related to Jack Black. Who knows?

Two of Revere's daughters married Lincoln brothers. One of those unions, after a few generations, led to Abe Lincoln. He mentioned a fine Lincoln family in Massachusetts once, saying he was no relation to them. I think, though, that he did later find out they were all descended from the Revere-Lincoln marriages. I hope so, anyway. He may have gotten a kick out of that.

[Throd]

25. Well done! Greetings from way out in California!

[merrily]

26. Glad you liked it.