by Beth Cronk, Meeker County Librarian
Happy Independence Day!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal…” These words from the Declaration of Independence remain inspiring and
relevant today, 242 years after they were written. This week we celebrate America, in all of its
imperfect glory.
Our founding documents are essential for all Americans to
read. The National Archives have the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the
Bill of Rights available to read at www.archives.gov/founding-docs.
You can also find them in our new library book, The Handy American Government Answer Book: How Washington, Politics, and Elections Work by Gina Misiroglu. This resource also
explains how Congress and the courts work, what the roles and responsibilities
of the president are, what civil liberties and civil rights are, plus a number
of other issues related to how our government works. It’s all organized in a question and answer
format; for example: “Why was Samuel Adams called the Father of the American
Revolution?” “What is the role of the first lady?” and “How are interest groups
regulated by the government?”
Thomas Paine said, “It is the object only of war that makes
it honorable. And if there was ever a
just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.” (This
and all quotations in this article are from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations,
2012) You can read about this war in our new book, The West Point History of the American Revolution. This history
covers everything from the causes of the revolution and its first battles to
Yorktown and beyond, discussing the adoption of the Constitution and the
formation of our country.
For some perspective on our current era, Jon Meacham wrote The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels. The phrase comes from Lincoln’s First
Inaugural Address: “The mystic chords of memory...will yet swell the chorus of
the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
our nature.” In this new book, Pulitzer Prize-winner Meacham examines other
critical times in American history when fierce partisan division threatened our
country. He reminds us that we have
faced political turmoil many times in the past, and we have come through better
than before.
George Washington said, “I had always hoped that this land
might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of
mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.”
Mohammed Al Samawi fled Yemen for the United States in 2015. In his new book The Fox Hunt: A Refugee’s Memoir of Coming to America, Al Samawi tells his story of becoming an
interfaith peace activist after secretly reading a copy of the Bible. Extremists in Yemen threatened his life for
working with Jewish and Christian people, and then he was trapped in his
apartment in the midst of a battle. He
reached out on Facebook for help, and four Americans helped him get out. This suspenseful story is being developed
into a movie.
At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin
Franklin said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang
separately.” James and Deborah Fallows
traveled the country for the past five years doing research for their new book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America. They found people in middle America banding together
to find practical solutions to societal problems, and the book is quite
optimistic. Duluth, Minnesota, is one of
the cities featured.
Thomas Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant
and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will
be.” This week we celebrate our
freedom. May we, like Jefferson, be
curious readers who are always looking to improve our minds and education, for
the benefit of our wonderful nation.
