The New York Public Library has taken the Declaration as its lens for the 250th anniversary—not as a document frozen in 1776 but as a living protest document that Americans in every generation have returned to in order to demand what it promised but failed to deliver. The library describes it as “a perfect promise to an imperfect nation.” Frederick Douglass delivered “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” in Rochester on July 5, 1852. This speech used the language and ideals of the Declaration to indict a nation that still enslaved human beings. The library's LGBTQ archives carry this tradition into the twentieth century through the activism of individuals like Barbara Gittings, who invoked the promises of the Declaration of Independence as she demanded equal employment rights for gay and lesbian Americans at July 4 “Reminder Day” protests, held at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall during the 1960s.
Interviewees
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Julie Golia
- Linda May Uris Director, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Library, New York Public Library
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Meredith Mann
- Interim Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts, New York Public Library
