Posted on 09/15/2010 11:37:32 AM PDT by Lucky9teen
In Town Squares and Backyards All Across the U.S.A. Americans Will Proclaim the Constitution in Public This Saturday.
Sometime last spring, Colin Hanna, the president of the issue advocacy organization Let Freedom Ring, was searching for a way to make Americans more aware of the actual contents of the U.S. Constitution. “It struck me,” Hanna remembers, “that, if Americans were to read the Constitution out loud, with their neighbors, they could not help but see how the Founding Father’s limited the national government to a few core functions in order to protect our liberty and security.”
In a few months’ time Hanna’s thought has become a phenomenon of more than 100 (as of Tuesday morning) public readings of the United States Constitution across the country on Saturday, September 18. Many more are expected as the date approaches.
Hanna reached out to Actress Janine Turner (“Northern Exposure”); Turner had already started an effort through the organization she founded, Constituting America, to promote awareness of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. Together they launched the WE READ THE CONSTITUTION.com project. The core of the project is an interactive web site, We Read the Constitution, where people can decide to host a Constitution-reading event and register it for all to see, or search for an event to attend.
In a letter sent to the nation’s governors, Turner and Hanna told them that “the People of the United States are less familiar with the history and text of the Constitution than previous generations of Americans. The public reading of the text of the United States Constitution is an effective way for a community to appreciate the Constitution and the way it protects them from tyranny, if, to quote Benjamin Franklin, they ‘keep it.’”
So far, ten state governors have issued proclamations urging people to read the Constitution on September 18.
A large map of the United States dominates the home page of We Read the Constitution, There’s a “pin” in the map for each event location. The locations are a mix of private homes and public places. “We wanted to give people the tools to run their own events,” Hanna said. “The web site has a guide to hosting an event, with a checklist, sample press release, even signs they can print out.”
But people don’t have to wait for September 18; the web site has the entire text of the Constitution available for people to read. One can even download a pdf version that prints out cleanly. “We want everyone to start reading the Constitution right away,” Hanna said, “after people read through the Constitution, the site allows them to report that accomplishment and receive, via email, a decorative certificate that certifies them as Constitutional Patriots.”
Why September 18? Hanna said that it was the first Saturday after (in fact, the day after) Constitution Day. Constitution Day is the annual observance marking the anniversary of the approval and signing of the proposed Constitution by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787.
Will “We Read The Constitution” become an annual event? Hanna is open to that. “We are focused on helping people to do this on this Saturday, September 18,” Hanna says, “afterward we’ll see what people thought about these events and consider doing it again next year.”
Find or host your own reading of the Constitution GO HERE.
Thanks for the info. I read the Constitution (and the Declaration of Independence) quite often (have one of the the Cato Institute’s pocket versions in my purse).
But I’d love the opportunity to hear it read out loud in the company of like-minded people. I’ve already got one of the events in my town on my calendar.
NICE IDEA!
It is but I really wonder if any of the “mere politicians”
sic. pointy ears and Rinos will listen —and if they listen will they /can they understand the terms used-or have they
divorced themselves from that ability as well?
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