Today in History: July 4

Today in History: July 4 From the Library of Congress, from their American Memory Collection, this page features photographs of fireworks for the 1939/40 Worlds Fair as well as links to important documents of our collective American past.

Here's hoping you and yours have a happy and safe 4th of July!

We have learned by experience and by the comparison of ourselves with people similarly situated, to hope that, at some day not very far in futurity, our grievances will be redressed, that our long lost rights will be restored to us, and that, in the full stature of men, we will stand up, and with our once cruel opponents and oppressors rejoice in the Declaration of our common country, and hail with them the approach of the glorious natal day of the Great Republic.
Mr. Jacob C. White, Jr., Introductory Remarks,
The Celebration of the Eighty-Third Anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence . . .
Banneker Institute,
July 4, 1859.
African-American Perspectives, 1818-1907