Week Seven: Living Up To Our Declaration of Independence

From The Desk of Michael Montgomery, War Memorial Fundraising Counsel
This week we take a little break from our recent focus on challenges facing our nation in summer 2021 to, instead, focus on the most fundamental challenge that we have always faced—how to live up to the ideals, hope, and promise of our Declaration of Independence. 

Personally, I have always considered the Declaration of Independence to be the “coming attraction” for the United States of America.  Everything that our country is, was, or that we hope to someday become is in the Declaration. Back when I taught American Politics and Government, I began every semester by passing a copy of the Declaration around the room and having each student read a passage. 

 Last fall, I was thrilled to find the video that appears below. In it, Joanne Freeman, Class of 1954 Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, introduces the Declaration and leads a reading of it by some of her students and colleagues. Freeman, a popular presence on History TV and PBS, is a specialist in our Founding Generation and especially Alexander Hamilton.  This video that we first put in front of our audience in fall 2020 runs 10:33.

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