Community reading of Declaration of Independence on the Fourth
BY MARGARET CARROLL-BERGMAN INDEPENDENT EDITOR

Photo by TIM WELD This Friday at the Unitarian Church, there will be a public reading of the Declaration of Independence at 9 a.m. with raffle to follow. Rebecca Weld, standing, and Chris Lohmann, sitting with raffle container, are on the Declaration of Independence committee.

Nantucket's Unitarian Universalist Church will host a public reading of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights at the Unitarian Church on Orange Street this Friday at 9 a.m. The event is free and open to the public.

"It's fun to get the kids involved," said Rebecca Weld, who has been organizing the event for the past five years. "The first year we did it, 150 people showed up; last year on the Fourth, we had well over 400 people. The actual reading takes 20 minutes and then we have a community sing-along."

There is also the political aspect to the public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

"It's celebrating being patriotic, whether you are for or against the current war," said Weld. "We are independent of a monarchy. We have all these great human rights that people in England (in 1776) did not have. It's an opportunity for people of different political beliefs and religions to come together and to celebrate."

Weld, an architect who came to the island eight years ago as a student and decided to make it her home, said she never tires of the public reading of the historic document.

"It's interesting to listen to what they (the Founding Fathers) were aiming to get their independence from," she said. "They had specific complaints. Hearing the Declaration of Independence read is more real than celebrating by having a barbecue. So often the things we do on the Fourth are unconnected to the holiday.

"We used to read the Constitution, but it is a little dry," said Weld. "Now we sing 'This Land Is Your Land' and 'America the Beautiful' and the kids get to sign a replica of the Declaration of Independence. The whole document is two pages long."

At 10:00 a.m., following the reading and the opportunity to purchase tickets, there will be a raffle drawing on the steps of the Unitarian Church with distribution of prizes. After the drawing, families can walk right into town in time to enjoy the town-sponsored festivities between 10:00 a.m. and noon.

At noon, following the town water fight, the first-prize raffle winner will be invited to climb the tower, which is normally closed to the public, in the company of Rev. Emeritus Ted Anderson to let freedom ring around the island by sounding our historic church bell.

Raffle tickets can be purchased for $5 each ($20 for a book of 5) between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. July 3rd in front of Congdon & Coleman's on Main Street or by contacting Rebecca Weld at 508- 325-0939.

All proceeds from these events will go to the maintenance of the historic Orange Street Church building. I