There’s a lot more to the Declaration of Independence than, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
Indeed, much of the revered document enumerates “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.”
There are more than 1,300 words in the Declaration, and all of them will be pronounced on the document’s 248th birthday Thursday at an annual public reading in Veterans Memorial Park. The low-key ceremony, coordinated by Jon O’Connor, is scheduled to begin on Thursday, July 4 at 10 a.m.
O’Connor said he plans to begin the ceremony with an introduction that provides historical context, followed by the word-for-word reading divided among four volunteers.
The readers will be The Rev. Michael Charchaflian, former chaplain of the Middlesex Jail and House of Correction in Billerica; Sandra Davis, commander, American Legion, Department of Massachusetts; Laurel Holland, chief of voluntary services at Bedford’s VA Hospital, and Bedford resident Michael O’Shaughnessy.
O’Connor is a past commander of Bedford’s American Legion Post 221 and also served on the Patriotic Holiday Committee. He said this is the seventh year of the Fourth of July reading, a tradition that began with former Bedford Minuteman John Filios, who was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel.
For a number of years, this has been the town’s only community Independence Day commemoration.
O’Connor said he remembers celebrating Flag Day as a child, when “we took red, white, and blue crepe paper and decorated our bikes, and everyone got into a big parade.” Patriotic holidays need to be in “the forefront, not the background,” he said.
The “founding fathers certainly had a whole different perspective on what this country meant,” he commented. “And we have to remind people.”
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