A desire to celebrate America’s 250th birthday brought two former history majors to Newberry Library for a live reading of the Declaration of Independence on Wednesday.
Though nearly 40 years apart, the two women expressed a common goal to be optimistic amid the country’s shortcomings.
“We’re a beacon for the world — hopefully — still,” said Ellyn Robinson, 61, of the Gold Coast. “There’s some things that have changed in the last couple years, but I am hopeful. I am hopeful. We’ve had this great experiment that’s been tested in lots of generations, and now we’re facing our test in our generation to prove ourselves worthy of the Declaration and the Constitution that were left for us.”
Isabella Barboza, 22, who lives in East Side, said she also finds the Declaration of Independence meaningful, even though she views it as more of an “ideal” than a reality.
“Not everyone in the United States is treated equally,” said Barboza, who recently graduated from Yale. “I think it’s nice to aspire to that, and that’s why I came.”
Robinson, Barboza and about 100 others participated in the “Sharing the Spirit of America” program, a simultaneous, worldwide reading of the Declaration of Independence at 5 p.m. in Chicago; in all, it was read in more than 1,000 locations. Sponsored by the Hawai’i America250 Commission, the event commemorated America’s 250th anniversary and the first public reading of the document in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776. In Illinois, participants included the American Writers Museum, Pullman National Historical Park and dozens of other cultural organizations, courthouses and sites.
Newberry Library attendees read the text aloud from pocket-sized booklets distributed statewide by the Illinois America 250 Commission, which encouraged reflection on the promise of equal rights for all, a government that answers to the people, and Illinois’ role in the story of America. They also perused the library’s current exhibit, “Free and Independent: The Declaration of Independence and the Words That Made the United States.” The exhibit includes a rare, early copy of the document. Overall, the event fostered strong feelings of patriotism, camaraderie and contemplation.
“There’s so much going on right now, and it feels very poignant to take this time to come together in these kinds of public spaces and share in what it all means,” said Jill Austin, Newberry Library’s vice president for public engagement. “There is a lot for us all to reflect on — to think about how we got here and what role we all have to play in the present in order to ensure a more perfect future for the next generations.”
The reading was kicked off by “Free and Independent” exhibit curator Eric Slauter, who is also deputy dean of the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago. The audience of mostly older Chicagoans took less than 15 minutes to read the approximately 1,300-word document.
Eric Slauter, curator of the “Free and Independent: The Declaration of Independence and the Words That Made the United States” exhibit at the Newberry Library, stands next to an authentic copy of the document ahead of a state and nationwide reading of the docuement on Wednesday, the 250th Anniversary of the first public reading of the document.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Given the time of its creation, the document features some offensive language, including a passage that uses a derogatory name for Native Americans. Participants were encouraged to skip that small section, though not everyone remembered to do so.
Slauter said it is important to grapple with the declaration’s imperfections, and the objections that abolitionists, enslaved people and others made to its promise that “all men are created equal.”
“The range of interpretations of that phrase suggests that people had different understandings,” he said. “Some read with skepticism, some read with hope and some just didn’t even notice it.”
He also reminded attendees that the declaration’s famous words about equality were referenced well beyond its signing by figures including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King.
Reflecting on everything from the words of the Declaration of Independence to the architecture of the Newberry Library itself, attendee Kevin Connors became emotional.
“It was a moving experience all around,” said Connors, 52, of River North. “It just makes me proud to be an American from the great state of Illinois and a Chicagoan. And this library is a treasure.”