 And gentlemen, welcome to the National Archives. I'm Allison Seymour. Happy birthday, America. Before we get started with our really exciting program, I do want to thank the Experience Band and show for their great performance earlier. Their introduction to the sound of DC. Go, go to anybody who is visiting. Welcome to DC. Welcome. Thank you so much. Yes, where are our visitors? As a matter of fact, who's visiting? Welcome to our nation's capital. And thank you so much for joining us on this very special Fourth of July. The National Archives is the permanent home of the Declaration of Independence. For more than 40 years, the National Archives has hosted a ceremony on the Fourth of July to celebrate our independence. After a two-year hiatus, we are so happy to join you in person once again this year. This is the kickoff event for all of today's patriotic activities in our nation's capital. And after our ceremony, stay right here to enjoy all the live music followed by the National Independence Day Parade on Constitution Avenue, which is right here. Or you can escape the heat and come on inside the National Archives building to see the original Declaration of Independence and participate in our family-friendly activities. Later this evening, the National Symphony Orchestra will present its annual concert, a capital fourth in front of the US Capitol. After that concert, you can enjoy the fireworks on the National Mall. Those start at exactly 9.09 PM tonight. And you might have noticed our volunteers carrying big signs with today's hashtag and other social media information. Where are our volunteers? I'm trying to see if I can see anyone. OK, well, let me give you the hashtags. The National Archives is on Twitter and Instagram at US NAT Archives. Please share your fourth of July experience using the hashtags, hashtag archives July 4. And after the ceremony, don't miss our special Declaration of Independence signing booth. Following the ceremony, that booth will be set up inside the museum's Boeing Learning Center with other great family activities. So we ask you to stay around, enjoy the day, and celebrate our independence. And now, I ask you to please rise for the presentation of the colors by the Continental Color Guard from the third US Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard, followed by Mr. DC Washington singing our national anthem. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts were so gallantly streaming? Our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star spay. Now, to give us the sounds of colonial America, we have the third US Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard, Fife and Drum Corps. Their uniforms are from the Revolutionary War era, and so is their music. I'm pleased to present Command Sergeant Major Lutricia Fields to narrate their performance. Please join me in welcoming the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The United States Army Military District of Washington, under the command of Major General Allen M. Peppen, is proud to present the United States Army, Old Guard, Fife, and Drum Corps. The third United States Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard, traces its lineage back to George Washington's original Continental Army, and today serves as the Army's official escort to the president of the United States. In 1960, the Fife and Drum Corps was organized to participate in official ceremonies and to revive our Army's musical heritage. This morning show paints a series of pictures from the life of an early American soldier musician from the days of the American Revolution through the 19th century. Bifes, drums, and bugles were vital to military order and discipline. Field musicians were used to issue commands during battle and to regulate the soldier's day. Soldiers at the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps wear uniforms patterned after those of General Washington's Continental Army. In order to be easily identified, military musicians were the reverse colors of the regiment to which they were assigned. At that time, American infantry soldiers wore blue coats with red facings. Thus, the musicians wore red coats with blue facings. Traditionally, the most skilled drummer was given the title of drum major and was chosen to lead the musicians. Today, the drum major who stands before you wears the light infantry cap and issues silent commands using the S-pond tune and adapted 18th century weapon. Music was an essential part of military life on and off the battlefield. Traditional folk melodies were performed around the campfire to boost morale and provide a momentary reprieve from life at war. We now feature the bugles, bifes, and drums in a scene illustrating both the soldier's respite and the ever-present duty to answer the call to arms. To the fallen with a traditional mournful tune, Roslyn Castle. As the sun set on the battles of the Revolutionary War, our country turned to its newfound freedom. The steadfast values of the US Constitution echo through our ranks and remain a driving force of the Army today. As we close our show, the Corps honors the brave men and women who have fought and continue to fight for the American people. The Old Guard commander, Colonel Patrick Emerati, and the Fife and Drum Corps commander, Chief Foreign Officer Ford Donna L. Morgan, it has been our pleasure performing for you today. Let's hear it once again, taking a step back in time. The Old Guard, Fife and Drum. Well, even though this is the permanent home of the Declaration of Independence, that extraordinary piece of parchment is just one of the billions of documents held in trust by the National Archives. The pieces of paper, photographs, and films in the holdings of the National Archives tell the story of democracy in these United States. And the mission of the National Archives is to make these documents available to you, the American people. Now I'd like to introduce a very important person whom our nation has entrusted the care of the Declaration of Independence. Deborah Steydell Wall is the acting archivist of the United States. Yes, we need to give it up for Deborah Steydell Wall. About to hear from her. She became the acting archivist of the United States in May of 2022, upon the retirement of the 10th archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero. She was appointed as deputy archivist of the United States in July of 2011 and previously served as the agency's chief of staff from the years 2008 to 2011. And in a variety of management positions related to bringing Narwhal's archival holdings to the public online. She joined the National Archives in 1991 as an archivist trainee with a specialty in film and holds an undergraduate degree in history and government from Georgetown University and a graduate degree in film from American University. Ladies and gentlemen, Deborah Steydell Wall, acting archivist of the United States. Happy Fourth of July. It's great to see you here today on the 246th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It's especially wonderful to be back in person celebrating on the steps of the National Archives building here in Washington. Many thanks to Alison Seymour for joining us again this year as emcee of our festivities and special greetings to those of you in our presidential libraries and across the country who are watching this via live streaming, including my mom. The Fourth of July starts here at the National Archives because we're the proud home of the original Declaration of Independence. In fact, it's right through that door behind me. I have the distinct honor of working in this building and I'm fortunate that I get to see the Declaration on a fairly regular basis. But it's truly miraculous that we have the Declaration of Independence here at all. The Declaration traveled around a lot before it came to the National Archives in 1952. This document was signed by our founding fathers in 1776 in Philadelphia. It moved with the Continental Congress from city to city. Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Princeton, New Jersey. After the Revolutionary War, Congress met in Annapolis, Maryland, then moved to Trenton, New Jersey. From 1785 to 1790, the Declaration's home was in New York City. In 1789, the Secretary of Congress transferred it to the Secretary of State. The Declaration then moved with the government from New York to Philadelphia and finally to the city of Washington in 1800. When the British were attacking Washington during the War of 1812, a clerk at the State Department, Steven Pleasanton, wrapped up the Declaration of Independence and other important documents in corselin and bags, put them in a wagon and hid them in Virginia. The next day, Washington was burning, but the Declaration was safe in an unused grist mill near Chain Bridge in Virginia and it was moved a few days later to Leesburg, Virginia. In the 1800s, the Declaration of Independence was on exhibit for long periods of time. In fact, it hung across from a window for over 30 years. Natural aging, sunlight, smoke, fluctuating temperatures and humidity all took their toll on the document. Eventually, the State Department removed it from display and stored it flat where it joined the Constitution until 1921 when President Harding signed an order transferring both of those documents to the Library of Congress. But the Declaration wasn't done moving. Just before the United States entered World War II, the Declaration and Constitution were sent to Fort Knox for safekeeping where they remained until September of 1944 when they returned to the Library of Congress. Finally, these documents came to their rightful home here at the National Archives on December 13th, 1952. There was a big, elaborate parade where the Declaration of Independence along with the Constitution was escorted from the Library of Congress by military personnel and carried up these steps into the rotunda where they make their permanent home. After the ceremony, I invite you to come inside our nice cool air conditioned building and see the Declaration of Independence along with the Constitution and Bill of Rights for yourself. A few reminders. You can share your pictures and stories from your 4th of July experience at the U.S. Nat Archives on Twitter and Instagram. Use the hashtag archives July 4th. You can also add your own John Hancock to the Declaration of Independence at our special signing booth inside the Boeing Learning Center. And although we don't allow photography in the museum, we've made a special exception for our selfie station where you can snap selfies with some of our special historical guests. Thank you so much for coming out for today's ceremony and the reading of the Declaration of Independence. Doing so reminds us of that tense and challenging moment we faced 246 years ago. It's that act of rebellion and the nation it produced, however imperfect that we celebrate today. Now I'd like to introduce our keynote speaker. Rodney Slater is a senior partner at Squire Pat and Boggs and a former U.S. Secretary of Transportation. As Secretary of Transportation under President Bill Clinton, he passed several historic legislative initiatives, including the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st century and the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment Reform Act. He's the former administrator of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, former director of government relations at Arkansas State University, former special assistant for economic and community programs and former executive assistant for community and minority affairs to then Governor Bill Clinton. And he's the Vice Chair of the National Archives Foundation Board of Directors. Please welcome Rodney Slater. Thank you. Today we stand on the steps of America's living history. To celebrate, reflect and rededicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the promise made 246 years ago. Now as never before in our history, we draw strength from the founding ideal of our democracy, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We are also reminded that our Declaration of Independence and so many of the hollow documents that are preserved in the building behind me embody the indispensable elements of our national consciousness. Collectively, they represent what we at the National Archives know as America's Charters of Freedom. The U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Emancipation Proclamation, 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th Amendments, General Order Number Three dealing with Juneteenth, the Deed of the Statue of Liberty, the 1965 Voting Rights Act. All of these documents and more epitomize the collective wisdom and power of a Pluribus Unum out of many one. The challenge of each of us is to follow the example of our founders and the countless unsung heroes who pledge their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor to the unending work of building a more perfect union. I want to thank our acting archivist, Deborah Sadelle Wall, for inviting me here today for a few words at the Fourth of July Reading Ceremony. I also want to thank our sponsors of this wonderful event, John Hancock, AARP, Daikama, for their generous support. As the Vice Chair of the National Archives Foundation Board of Directors, my work and the work of our fellow board members is to support this revered institution, an institution devoted to protecting and preserving our nation's most precious and treasured documents and our history, including the original Declaration of Independence. As we gather here in Washington, DC and around the country on this day of fun and family and food and festivities, I want all of us to just pause here at the archives, all of us together at this unique celebration of the freedoms that have made America the most successful multicultural democracy in world history, a beacon of hope and an exemplar of self-government and self-governance for freedom-loving peoples around the world. President Joseph R. Biden speaks of the soul and the essence of America, when he proclaims that we will lead not just by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. And in this moment of celebration and reflection, we must acknowledge that we're still very much an imperfect union, as we face a number of existential threats to our survival. From the calamity of January 6th to the horror and the heartbreak of losing too many of our children, losing any of our children to gun violence, from continued racial divisions and the so-called cultural wars that seek to divide and to tear us apart. This day reminds us that regardless of our struggles as a nation, all of the struggles that we have faced, we have always come together as a people of all races, ethnicities, all walks of life, to lift one another up and to overcome adversity. It is during these trying times that we need to be reminded of the promise of our great nation even more. We find strength and courage and resolve in the course of human events, as the founders and countless others did so many years ago, standing up at great risk to themselves and their families to speak out against tyranny, to unite as one people and to ensure the steadfastness and the sustainability of our nation. The importance of the Declaration of Independence can hardly be overstated. It established for the first time in human history, a new nation, a union based on the concept of equality and the right, the right of self-governance. The promise, yes, while the promise of America and its inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are self-evident, it is a promise that is not effortless. Dr. King reminds us that human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice and suffering and struggle. The tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated citizens. The pursuit of inalienable rights has been a challenge for our nation from its inception and remains a challenge that we face today. From Abigail Adams and her admonition on the eve of the writing of the Constitution to quote, remember the ladies. To the recent regressive steps taken by the United States Supreme Court to overturn Roe. The promise of America and the reality of America have been engaged in sort of a seesaw struggle on the scales of justice. Our democracy begins with a promise, but it doesn't end there. We the people must dedicate ourselves to making the promise real. And sometimes it is done through the quiet determination of an elected or appointed official or an election day worker, essential workers of all stripes, a young gifted poet, a young courageous staffer. Sometimes the promise of our democracy is renewed in the righteous indignation of a protester lawfully petitioning the government or a 100 year old grandmother standing in line to vote. All of us have a role to play as we continue to march to ever higher ground on the journey to become, as Dr. King said, a beloved community. This building behind me has enshrined the documented struggle for that beloved community. Reinforcing our ideal and continuing to inspire us to answer the call of today's challenges and life's vicissitudes. Two years ago I penned an op-ed commemorating the 244th July 4th holiday. I used the acclaimed speech of Frederick Douglass given July 5th, 1852, as my point of reference and a point of reference that so many have used in years past. Douglass's speech was clear and direct in addressing America's original sin, slavery, and he was prescient in anticipating the Civil War. 11 years before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, 13 years before the passage of the 13th Amendment ending slavery, he called the 4th of July, quote, the first great fact of our nation's birthday. The very ring boat in the chain of America's undeveloped destiny. As a son of the South, I cannot hope to match Douglass's eloquence or clear-eyed analysis and witness and wisdom. I can, however, honor and pay tribute to his recognition that freedom is not free, that self-evident truths are not self-executing and that we must remain hopeful and engaged in embracing and exercising the rights and responsibilities of democracy. The documents of freedom housed in the National Archives not only represent the hope of the founders and the sacrifices of great patriots like Washington and Jefferson, Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Chief Seattle, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Johnson, Bayard Rustin, Cesar Chavez, Patty Mink, and others, they represent the dreams of every generation before and every generation since that pivotal day of January 4th, 1776. And these documents illustrate the winding road of progress many have forged before us. Finally, I find hope. I find hope even in these difficult times in the very core of our founders' intent as proclaimed by Lincoln at Gettysburg to create a government of the people and by the people and for the people with liberty and justice for all. So on this July 4th, I recall Lexington and Concord and Yorktown and Sumter and Gettysburg and Appomattox. I recall Pearl Harbor and Ground Zero. I recall Topeka and Little Rock and New Orleans. I recall Elaine and Tulsa and Galveston. I recall Seneca Falls and Birmingham and Selma and Montgomery. I join all of you and the other 330 million of our fellow citizens as we rightly celebrate and as we reflect on and as we rededicate ourselves to the promise of America. And I ask that you remember the words of one of my favorite presidents, William Jefferson Clinton. Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world, but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that can't be cured by what is right with America. I thank you for coming today, the 4th of July, in celebration, reflection and rededication. Happy birthday, America. Thank you so much. And now, I am happy to introduce you to a very distinguished group of people who will read the Declaration of Independence. Our first three readers are General George Washington, Mr. John Hancock and Mrs. Abigail Adams. Next, to read the grievances against King George III, we have three of the leaders of the Second Continental Congress, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, Mr. John Adams and Dr. Benjamin Franklin. These three gentlemen know the words of the Declaration better than anyone else. All three served on the committee to draft the Declaration and Mr. Jefferson was the primary author. And to read the names of the 56 signers of the Declaration, we are proud to have Private Edward Ned Hector of the Third Pennsylvania Artillery Company, Free Black Colonial Soldier, Patriot and Hero. Finally, we're gonna have some audience participation just as our colonial forefathers would have done. As our special guests read the grievances against King George, watch for James Fortin, historical abolitionist, Philadelphia sale maker and our town crier today. Where are you? I know I saw you. All right. The town crier will be assisted by our volunteers holding the signs to tell us when we will express our displeasure with a hearty boom. Can we hear it? Boom. Ladies and gentlemen, the Declaration of Independence. In Congress, July 4th, 1776, the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America. In the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. And that whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. Laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall most likely seem to affect their safety and happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate the government's long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. And accordingly, all experience have shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer. While evils are sufferable, then to write themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, evinces are designed to reduce them under absolute despotism. It is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. Has been the patient's sufferance of these colonies and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations. How all having the direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states to prove this be submitted to a candid world. The most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his assent shall be obtained. And when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws of the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right in estimate will to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers incapable of the annihilation have returned to the people at large for their exercise. The state, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and the convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither and raise in the conditions of new appropriations of land. He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. No! He has made the judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries. No! He has erected a multitude of new officers and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. Oh! He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He, he has effected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power. Oh! He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to the acts of pretended legislation for a quartering large bodies of armed troops among us, for protecting them by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states, for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world, for imposing taxes on us without our consent, Oh! For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury, for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses, for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing variant and arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies, for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases, what so ever. Oh! He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coast, burned our towns and destroyed the lives of our people. He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, a desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. Oh! He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive upon the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections among us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless indians, savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. Every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Or have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren? We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here and we have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind. Enemies in war, in peace, friends. Representatives of the United States of America, General Congress assembled, appealing to the supreme charge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, establish commerce and to do all of right do. Of this declaration, with a firm reliance and the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other. Thank you, General Washington, Mr. Hancock, Mrs. Adams, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin and Mr. Fortin. How stirring it is to hear those words just as they were written 243 years ago. Private Hector will now read the names of the colonies and the signers of the declaration. Like the colonists, we will show our approval by shouting, ha-za! Can we say it? Again, a watch for the town crier, assisted by our volunteers, holding the signs to show you when to shout. So after Private Hector reads all the names of the signers from each state, let's ha-za our approval. But first though, let's just do it one more time because if you're visiting, you're gonna hear your state called and we wanna hear it loud and proud. Let's do it one more time. Ha-za! Ha-za! Now remember, we are going to wait for Private Hector to read all the names from each state and then we're gonna shout out our approval, but I've been here before, we're gonna shout it out when we want to really because we're Americans and ha-za. And now the names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. You asked me what sort of person would sign a document like this. I'm so glad you asked. These are the people who would have the courage to sign such a paper. First of all, the honorable President of the Continental Congress, John Hancock with Georgia, Gwinnett O.S. Carroll of Carrollton. Be the people. Extra, thank you. Now before we have the program finale, I do want to tell you about some of the activities we have going on inside the National Archives building today. This building closes at 7 p.m., so don't miss your chance to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta. We also have special hands-on July 4th family activities in the Boeing Learning Center until 4 p.m. And make sure you stop by the National Archives store tent for exclusive Independence Day products that support educational outreach and events like this at the National Archives. And I'd also like to thank the people who helped make this year's July 4th in-person celebration possible, the National Archives Foundation, and long-time sponsors of this great event, John Hancock and Dykema, along with AARP for their major support. The American historic, yes, yes to AARP card holders, and me, myself included. The American Historical Theater and our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, and our representatives of the Continental Army, Private Ned Hector, and guest of General George Washington, John Hancock, and Abigail Adams, and James Fortin. The Continental Color Guard from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard, and the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, Mr. D.C. Washington, and the Experience Band and Show. And of course, we wouldn't have had this celebration without the hard work of the staff and the volunteers at the National Archives. Can we give it up? And I also wanna thank you for joining us to commemorate the 246th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. The National Independence Day Parade starts at 11.45 a.m. right after this ceremony. Those of you on the steps, if you wanna see it, you've got a great seat right here. If you stay put, that's after this ceremony. But before the parade starts, the Experience Band and Show will join us on stage, once again, for some more live music. I wish you all a wonderful 4th of July, and I hope you'll stay for our finale and take part in our activities this afternoon and share your 4th of July experience on social media. Use that hashtag. Archives July 4. Happy birthday, America. Have a safe and wonderful Independence Day. And now please remain seated as we welcome back Mr. D.C. Washington, who will close our program with America the Beautiful. Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties, above the fruities. Oh, beautiful for patriot's dreams that seize beyond the years. Our alabaster cities gleam. Oh, America, God shed his grace on thy good with...