By JOSEPH KELLARD
On Saturday, however, Barbara Horn will read aloud such historic words as “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” and “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union ...”
As she has for the past two years, Horn, a Long Beach resident, will read both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, in their entirety, on the boardwalk at Riverside Boulevard at 10 a.m., this time in celebration of the nation’s 233 birthday.
“It breaths life into the history of the documents,” Horn said about her reason for reading America’s founding documents aloud in public. “I think we should all hear or read the documents at least once a year.”
At her first reading three years ago, Horn stood in a drizzling rain on the boardwalk and started to read the documents for anyone to hear. During this 90-minute session, a handful of passers-by stopped to listen, smiled and continued on.
The next year Horn had company and drew a more attention. A volunteer at the Long Beach Adult Learning Center, Horn invited a woman who she was teaching to speak English to join her. The woman, her husband and their 10- and 12-year-old daughters, immigrants from the Dominican Republic living in Baldwin, traded off reading the Declaration.
“It’s very moving to hear other people read them,” Horn said, “especially when the new citizens read it. It deepens the experience of the whole thing. I mean, on some level, that’s what we all were in the beginning. The people who wrote the documents belonged to another country. They came over here.”
That day, about two dozen boardwalkers stopped to listen to Horn, and an
elderly couple took part in reading the
Constitution.
Horn was originally inspired to take on this now annual reading after watching Republicans and Democrats debate the meaning of the Constitution on a political talk show. “Everyone was basically yelling ‘I’m right; no I’m right,” and I felt I needed to read it for myself, I felt I had to go back to the source, to what the Founders wrote,” Horn recalled.
The hottest political issues that July were the war in Iraq and immigration. “I was meeting some good citizens who were saying I don’t want to pay for health care for illegal immigrants because they are just that, illegal,” said Horn, who calls herself a “progressive.” “And I was seeing people who said if you don’t like the war, then get the hell out of the country.”
This year, leading up to Independence Day, Horn said she invited people from throughout the Long Beach community to join her in the readings.
And what do the documents represent to her? “We’re in this country where we have so much freedom and we should be enjoying it and celebrating it and making sure that it is experienced,” she said. “It’s an exceptional context in which our lives take place.”
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
