This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s an important historical birthday for the United States, and we will be celebrating it all year-round with our new Free to Be series. With respect to Marlo Thomas, our Free to Be posts will be celebrating unique freedoms we enjoy as Americans. And this month, we’re looking at how we’re free to express ourselves.
From Thomas Jefferson’s eloquent argument for revolt against England in the Declaration of Independence to the freedoms of worship, speech, press, assembly, and protest enshrined in the First Amendment, the right to self-expression has been a fundamental American belief since our beginning. Several of our Founding Fathers were talented and prodigious writers, with Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin among the best known for the work of their pens.
The Founding Fathers’ emphasis on the importance of freedom of speech was rooted in the reality of having been an English colony. At the time, England had anti-sedition laws that restricted criticizing the government, and those laws were applied in their American colonies as well. Sedition could be punishable by fines or time in the stocks, whippings, and even sometimes mutilation or execution. Thus, when the Founding Fathers pushed back openly against the king and Parliament with their speech and writings, they knew it was a serious matter. They also wanted to prevent a repeat of this restriction in the new country they formed.
In the decades and centuries since then, these rights to self-expression have been further clarified and refined but remain an essential and defining American freedom.
At the Berryville Library, 250 years after our nation’s founding, we have all sorts of programs and resources to help you express yourself. Whether it’s books you can check out that can help you improve your own speaking and writing skills to book clubs for all ages that let you sound off on what you think about the reading in question to hands-on opportunities that let you express yourself creatively, there is something for everyone at the library. We even have a monthly VolunTeen Talk-Up that lets teens have a say in the library.
Thank you, America!
What’s your favorite way to express yourself at the library? Tell us in the comments!
Berryville Book Buzz 