The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong,
and freedom, which is eternally right.
and freedom, which is eternally right.
"When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, 'It rang as if it meant something.' In our time it means something still."
full text at Aljazeera.net
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The Liberty Bell is an American bell, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its importance is largely based on mythologizing: a fictional story written by George Lippard in 1847 about an old bellman ringing the bell at the moment the Continental Congress declared independence has become the basis for patriotic lessons taught in elementary schools across the nation.
It may perhaps be true that the bell was rung on July 8, 1776 to summon citizens for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, but it was not called the Liberty Bell until 1837, when it became a symbol of the abolitionist movement because of its cast inscription from Leviticus 25:10: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." The "Liberty" for which the bell was named is thus liberty for the enslaved Africans and not for the colonists of America.
[...]
In October 2003, the bell was moved a short distance to the southwest to a new pavilion, the Liberty Bell Center. There was some controversy about the site chosen for the new structure, which was just to the south of the site of where George Washington had lived in the 1790s. After the initial planning, the building's site was found to be adjacent to the quarters for the slaves owned by Washington. The decision over how to acknowledge this fact in the display has led to some debate.
