by Richard M. Ebeling
The American Institute for Economic Research
July is the month when Americans celebrate the signing and then the announcement of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. While this July 4th was one of the most peculiar in the country’s history because of fears about and government restrictions on social gatherings due to the coronavirus, it is nonetheless one of the great cultural events each year throughout the United States.
Besides the coronavirus, however, another crisis has affected and influenced the atmosphere surrounding the 4th of July, and that has been accusations and actions by some demonstrators (radical “activists”) that the American Declaration of Independence is a sham and a lie because of the taint of racism in the form of slavery from the beginning of the country’s history.