US celebrates Independence Day, its 245th birthday

People wear U.S. flag-themed hats as visitors arrive to watch the Independence Day fireworks display near the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, July 4, 2021.

WASHINGTON, July 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States celebrated its Independence Day on Sunday July 4, the 245th anniversary of its founding and this year a symbolic renewal of many family and public celebrations that had been curtailed for more than a year by coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden invited 1,000 first responders and military personnel to the White House for a barbecue picnic and a prime view of the annual fireworks show on the nearby National Mall.

In New York, 65,000 fireworks shells have been loaded onto five barges to shoot off at nightfall.

Communities large and small across the country staged their own parades and celebrations, with booming fireworks set to close out the day. Many families got together again for backyard picnics and met up with friends and relatives they had not seen for months or longer, some not since the coronavirus took hold in the United States in March 2020.

Many airports were jammed with travelers. The American Automobile Association said July 4th road travel was expected to be the heaviest ever for the holiday, with an estimated 43.6 million Americans driving to be with friends and relatives.

The U.S. did not meet Biden’s goal of 70% of the country’s adults having at least one coronavirus vaccination in time for the holiday, but it came close at 67.1%.

Health officials continue to urge Americans to get vaccinated, although young people in particular and those living in states that voted for Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, in last November’s election showing the most reluctance to get vaccinated.

The government’s Homeland Security agency warned state and local police last week of the possible threat of violence by domestic extremist groups over the holiday weekend, but the day appeared to be peaceful.

The Fourth of July is celebrated as America’s Independence Day in observance of July 4, 1776, when representatives from the 13 colonies that became the United States approved the historic Declaration of Independence, a grand announcement of the colonies’ self-declared independence from England.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” the country’s founding fathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence.

But women were not considered equal, and many of the signers of the declaration were slaveholders who did not view slaves as equal or endowed with rights.

In July 1852, Frederick Douglass, a former slave and great orator who traveled the country and abroad to lecture about the evils of slavery, was invited to give a speech in Rochester, New York, about the Fourth of July.

In what is perhaps his most famous speech, Douglass asked, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; A day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

In its 245th year, America continues to struggle with inequalities based on race and gender, but officials often say, it is striving for “a more perfect union.”

But jubilation will be tempered by the White House falling just short of its much-promoted vaccination goal of getting seven in 10 adults their first shot by Independence Day.

   Opponents of the White House event have voiced concern that images of nationwide partying could send the wrong message, with only 46 percent of Americans fully inoculated, and areas with low vaccination take-up awash with the highly contagious Delta variant.

   Public health officials have highlighted swaths of rural America where hospitals are starting to fill up again, especially in Utah, Missouri, Arkansas and Wyoming.

   Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, told NBC unvaccinated people now account 99.2 percent of Covid-19 deaths.

   The celebration will be another chance for Biden to talk up the country’s economic outlook as he walks a tightrope on his legislative priorities going into the summer.

   Negotiations continue on a bipartisan infrastructure deal and tense debate within his Democratic Party looms on a much broader spending package that has no support from Republicans.

   The president visited a cherry farm in Michigan on Saturday to tout a positive June employment report hailed as a sign of America’s economic resurgence.

     The administration has also sent cabinet secretaries and other officials to sports events, cookouts and festivals nationwide as part of its “America’s Back Together” celebration.

   The White House — at least outwardly — continues to brim with confidence. Six in 10 respondents in a new poll by The Washington Post and ABC News out Sunday give Biden positive ratings for his handling of the pandemic.

   Images of a crowded South Lawn will be reflected in scenes of celebration across the country, with New York, Chicago, Las Vegas and other cities all putting on their own shows.

   On the west coast, San Diego was readying to stage one of the largest July 4 parties in the country, with fireworks discharged from four barges around the bay.

   California Senator Alex Padilla called Independence Day “a reminder of the American dream.”

   “The best way to celebrate Independence Day is by taking a moment to acknowledge all the hard work that it took to get here,” he said. — NNN-AGENCIES