Preparations to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s independence, from small-town parades to museum exhibitions and oral-history projects, have been in the works for years. But to many Americans tuning in now, the impression is of a last-minute scramble to mount a semiquincentennial stamped by the showmanship and preferences of President Donald Trump.
In recent weeks, a Trump-backed group has announced, then canceled, a series of concerts on the National Mall after several artists dropped out. Contractors are building booths for a fair on the Mall that is supposed to invoke the grandeur of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair but has yet to generate buzz.
The most visible symbol of a major celebration in Washington is a giant circular lighting rig erected on the South Lawn of the White House. On Sunday, which is Flag Day and Mr. Trump’s 80th birthday, it will illuminate an eight-sided cage for a scheduled night of bouts organized by the Ultimate Fighting Championship before an invited audience of mostly military personnel.
Why We Wrote This
On Sunday, the White House will host mixed martial arts fights – one in a series of 250th anniversary events that so far haven’t generated broad excitement or unity. Some Americans are already seeing the U.S. semiquincentennial as a missed opportunity.
UFC has built a loyal and profitable audience for mixed martial arts. But a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found only 16% of adults considered it appropriate to hold UFC fights at the White House. Even among Republicans, only 31% said it was appropriate.
Many celebratory events this summer could still prove unifying. Many states and localities will be hosting their own events to bring people together. There’s also the men’s soccer World Cup that the United States is jointly hosting with Mexico and Canada over the next month, which will offer a largely politics-free diversion. And against a backdrop of partisan rancor, economic uncertainty, and war in the Middle East, celebrating America’s 250th in a way that pleased everyone was perhaps always a tall order.
Standing outside the Smithsonian Metro station near the National Mall, Georgia resident Pete Nelson says he hadn’t been thinking about the 250th anniversary until just a few days ago, while on a trip to Manhattan with his 12-year-old son, Dale. The two of them visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, which was America’s most active immigration station in the early 1900s.
“To see what all the immigrants went through coming into this country originally, and then listening to what we kind of complain about today – like, it’s slightly irrelevant,” he says. The best way to celebrate the 250th, he offers, is to “try to learn as much of the history as you can.”
A flotilla of ships
When the U.S. celebrated its bicentennial in 1976, the signature event was a flotilla of tall ships that sailed into New York Harbor, passing a newly refurbished Statue of Liberty. Operation Sail featured ships from 34 countries, including an Italian Navy sailboat – the Amerigo Vespucci – named for the explorer from whose name America is derived. An estimated 6 million people watched the maritime parade. (The same nonprofit organizers are mounting another flotilla of military ships next month in New York and New Jersey.)
Back then, the nation also felt fractious, stressed, and war-weary, says Marc Stein, a historian at San Francisco State University and author of “Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s.” Crime was up. Energy prices were high. New York City, the flotilla’s host, had become a byword for urban dysfunction and debt. Some questioned whether it was even safe for Operation Sail.
President Gerald Ford, who had assumed office in 1974 after Richard Nixon resigned over Watergate, was among those who “hoped to use the bicentennial to ‘turn the page’ and ‘begin a new chapter’ with a patriotic and unifying celebration,” says Professor Stein via email. They largely succeeded, and many still remember the parties and parades held across the country.
This year, Charleston, South Carolina, is pulling out all the stops for the 250th: a peninsula-wide fireworks display on the Fourth of July will cap an evening of music, speeches, and cultural performances. It’s one of five host cities for “America’s Block Party,” a coast-to-coast celebration that kicks off in New York on the night of July 3. South Carolina has even issued a new license plate that proclaims “Where the Revolutionary War Was Won.”
Tom Bolling, a retired tech executive who lives in Charleston, remembers the spirit of 1976. He was studying in Paris, where he attended a bicentennial concert by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. As he reflects on that memory and the global image of America today, he starts to choke up.
“The rest of the world at that time looked at this 200-year-old republic and said what a wonder it was,” he says. “That’s not the sentiment today. Now, it’s a big bully.”
Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor
Dueling commemorative committees
Some fault Mr. Trump both for politicizing the anniversary and creating confusion by setting up an organization, Freedom 250, that is operating separately from the bipartisan commission Congress created in 2016 to oversee the commemorations. The congressionally appointed entity, known as the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, had fallen into disarray and bickering even before Mr. Trump’s return to the White House – reflecting the broader challenge of finding common ground in a divided country, whose citizens have grown distrustful of one another. Overcoming that distrust to retell a national story that ties the revolutionary spirit of 1776 to the present and future would challenge any political leader.
Throughout his career in politics, Mr. Trump has evinced relatively little interest either in historical narratives or lofty unifying rhetoric, in contrast to previous presidents who leaned into set-piece oratory. Mr. Trump has “a nonchalant and shifting relation” to the past, writes Yale historian Samuel Moyn. “He is a nationalist with little romantic investment in those who first launched the nation; to the extent that he’s nostalgic, it seems to be for the 1950s or the 1890s – not the 1770s.”
Mina Dixon hadn’t followed the 250th buildup in Washington, which she visited this week as a tourist, though she plans to attend some concerts in her home city of Philadelphia. But when she tried to take a photograph of the White House, the UFC arena on the South Lawn got in the way, much to her irritation. “I think it’s a waste of money,” she says. “We’re in Iran, and we’ve got a fight at the White House.” (According to organizers, the UFC is covering the $60 million-plus cost to stage the event.)
In addition to the UFC event, Freedom 250 is organizing a Grand Prix race in Washington in August. Initiatives outside the Beltway include the deployment of six mobile museums, or “Freedom Trucks,” that are crossing the country with a patriotic version of the nation’s founding that emphasizes its “Judeo-Christian” roots. The museums are a collaboration with a conservative media organization and Hillsdale College, whose leadership is close to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump has criticized the Smithsonian Institution and other cultural organizations that, in his telling, downplay America’s triumphs while magnifying negative chapters of its history. Over the past year, his administration has ordered national parks to remove offending exhibits, including a display at George Washington’s former residence in Philadelphia about the lives of Black people he enslaved. A federal court ordered the restoration of the exhibit; the administration is appealing.
On the National Mall, tall fences and gates currently direct visitors away from the central grassy strip where the Great American State Fair is under construction. All 50 states and several overseas territories have been allocated space to build temporary booths, though several mostly Democratic-run states have already declined to participate, citing costs and logistics. Piles of wood and massive boxes are stacked high. On a nearby building, a large banner proclaims “250 years of freedom,” flanked by images of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
Mark and Allison Karnes, who are checking out the activity on the Mall while visiting their daughter in Washington, say they’ll be back home barbecuing in Muskegon, Michigan, on the Fourth of July. To them, the Trump presidency has made the 250th anniversary feel anything but uplifting.
“It’s so political instead of just a celebration of joy,” says Ms. Karnes. “We need to be celebrating our country and not a political agenda.”
Trust in the system
While dark clouds hovered over 1976’s bicentennial, one key difference is that the public back then was upbeat about its ability to weather the storm, says Kevin Boyle, a historian at Northwestern University. Instead of feeling defeated by the country’s setbacks, including its retreat from Vietnam and the revelations about the Nixon presidency, many believed that America was uniquely capable of overcoming them.
In a Gallup poll taken in 1976, 4 out of 5 respondents said they had a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the U.S. system to handle its political, social, and economic problems. Another poll found that 77% thought America had lived up to the ideals of the Founding Fathers. This confidence made the divisions of 1976 seem less insurmountable, because voters felt that “the system actually worked in a way they just don’t feel anymore,” says Professor Boyle.
It wasn’t all clear sailing: The official bicentennial was protested by left-leaning groups who organized their own marches and rallies. Many Americans “were painfully aware of the gaps between the ideals [of freedom] that were being celebrated … and the realities of the past and present,” says Professor Stein.
Similar gaps loom today for Joan Davis-Wright, a Black veteran and retired high school history teacher who was on the National Mall this week. She doesn’t feel like celebrating the 250th anniversary under a president who she says is undermining the Constitution by weakening voting rights, pushing partisan redistricting, and removing memorials “to people of color that have fought in every war since we started as a nation.”
“We’re supposed to come together and love everybody [for the 250th],” she says, “and he’s just not showing love. I think it’s all about him.”
At Charleston Harbor’s Battery, where cannons still point seaward, Ray Wright, a road builder, has three rods in the water, baited with shrimp. “Birthday?” he asks when quizzed about America’s 250th. “What birthday?”
He hasn’t paid attention to the anniversary, mostly because U.S. history doesn’t interest him. But also because “It feels like that’s someone else’s history,” says Mr. Wright, who is Black.
He’ll likely be on hand for the fireworks on the Fourth, though, if only because they’ll light up the night above his fishing spot at the Battery.
Simon Montlake reported from Boston, Caitlin Babcock from Washington, and Patrik Jonsson from Charleston, South Carolina.