Independence

Louis Faurer, Silent Salesman, Philadelphia, ca. 1937 (2013.99.53)

Lisette Model, World War II Rally, Lower East Side, ca. 1943 (93.1993)

Henri Cartier-Bresson, New England, July 4, 1947 (220.1994)

Independence Day. This woman explained to me that the flagpole over her door was broken but “on such a day as this, one keeps one’s flag on one’s heart.” I felt in her a touch of the strength and robustness of the early American pioneers. – Henri Cartier-Bresson (220.1994)

Charles Moore (1931-2010), Medgar Evers, field secretary for NAACP in Mississippi, was shot and killed in his home state. This photograph shows some of the people who attended his funeral, June 1963 (222.2003.8)

Charles Isaacs, Parade at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, July 4, 1975 (52.2004)

After the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975, the US State Department established four refugee resettlement camps in California, Arkansas, Florida, and Pennsylvania. From May 28 to December 15, 1975, over 32,000 Vietnamese and Cambiodian refugees lived on the US Army post now called the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, in southeastern Pennsylvania, awaiting resettlement. fansinaflashbulb

Five years later, in 1980, the post became a refugee camp again when more than 19,000 Cubans were brought to FTIG [Fort Indiantown Gap] for processing and sponsorship. pa.gov

Lou Bernstein, Petunia C, Pony Foundation, 1970 (65.1992)

In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When 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 [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among [people], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that [humankind] are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right 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 a design 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…

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do… archives.gov