First off, I'd like to thank my mother for finding this patch (and several others) in the back of a closet at her home in Monticello, Mississippi and for her understanding of how much my patch collection means to me -- so much that she would ship them to me in Boston. Thanks, mom!
Several years ago, while still a young student in high school, I took a summer trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with some friends in my hometown church group. We departed the Hattiesburg, Mississippi AmTrak station on July 2 on what turned out to be a 38 hour train ride to the City of Brotherly Love (the train broke down in the middle of the night). One of our first stops was Philadelphia Museum of Art, and although at the time I had never seen the movie Rocky, I made sure to run up the steps -- arms high above my head -- just as he did in the film. Now that I'm older and more wise, I'm glad that my naive younger self took part in such a sacred cultural tradition. ;-)
On Independence Day, I visited none other than Independence National Historical Park -- Independence Hall -- where in 1776, 56 delegates from the colonies declared our independence from Great Britain. I got to see the Liberty Bell, the national symbol which has only recently become so historically extraordinary to me, particularly its significance to the abolitionist movement.
Originally hung in 1751 on the 50th anniversary of Pennsylvania's first constitution, the Liberty Bell became a symbol of the abolitionist movement in 1837. It wasn't even called the "Liberty Bell" until William Lloyd Garrison published an anti-slavery poem in his newspaper The Liberator, in which the poem's author referred to the Pennsylvania State House bell as the Liberty Bell. Eventually, its inscription "Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land" became a symbol for the abolitionists' goal to free all Americans from enslavement.
In 1839, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society began publishing an annual gift book titled The Liberty Bell, containing anti-slavery poems, short stories and songs written by abolitionists including Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell. While working as an intern at the State Library of Massachusetts, I had the opportunity to see and read many of these for myself. Here's a link to my State Library blog post about The Liberty Bell gift book: http://mastatelibrary.blogspot.com/2012/07/liberty-bell.html.
I hope to visit Philly again soon and visit all of these significant historical sites again. I'll definitely appreciate them more the second time around.
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