Dawn had just cracked on America’s 250th birthday when a couple from Texas jogged past a sign outside the U.S. Capitol that read “POLICE LINE — DO NOT CROSS.” It was the start of a day that already wasn’t going according to the organizers’ grandiose plan, but Diane and Bill Riggs, their foreheads slick with sweat, were determined not to let the barriers, physical or meteorological, spoil their visit.
Diane wore a shirt with a slogan she proudly described as obnoxious: “Sorry I can’t hear you over the sound of my freedom.”
That ideal, Diane said, is what makes this day and this place special.
“That was the establishment of the greatest country in the world — the one that decided to take a stand and end slavery, and did it, followed through, who decided to put a man on the moon and did it, followed through,” she said. “I’m allowed to say things like this… allowed to be Jewish, Buddhist, Presbyterian, whatever I want. … Very few other countries have those.”
It was not Diane’s first time in D.C. for a landmark birthday. As a 6-year-old, she’d visited for America’s 200th anniversary, just after the end of the Vietnam War.
That, too, was a deeply tumultuous time in the country, but in her mind, all she could see were families sprawled across blankets on the lawn and, in all directions, the red, white and blue she’d come to see once more.
Like Diane and Bill, thousands of Americans in pursuit of some happiness, or at least some history, arrived this week in their sweltering capital to celebrate the anniversary of an indivisible nation that, in its recent past, has seldom felt more divided. Awaiting them was the promise of a spectacle intended to allay the disunity: rodeos, concerts, reenactments, speeches, parades, a sprawling fair, burgers and dogs and $12 Bud Lights, ear-popping flyovers and, for the planned late-night finale, some 850,000 fireworks.
How much of it would actually happen remained uncertain in the earliest hours of Washington’s big day. An oppressive heat wave has pushed temperatures past 100 degrees this week, forcing organizers to cancel the annual Independence Day parade, delay the opening of the Great American State Fair and move festivities at the National Archives indoors, angering people who’d waited hours to witness the reading of the Declaration of Independence.
For many visitors, the robust security didn’t help the mood, either. Dozens of roads have been closed, and the National Mall was largely impenetrable early this morning. Tourists who wanted one of the iconic, golden-hour photos at the Lincoln Memorial had to capture them through fences.
Diane and Bill seemed mostly unbothered by restrictions and, as Texans, haven’t been fazed by the heat, but they were disappointed that it has upended the festivities, particularly the parade.
“We were at the fair yesterday,” Bill said. “There were people dropping everywhere.”
Outside the National Archives, where hundreds had gathered to watch the annual reading of the Declaration, organizers’ sudden decision to move the festivities inside infuriated many in the crowd who feared they wouldn’t get to witness a historic retelling of a historic moment. When multiple lines formed, the early arrivals objected, some of them with shouting.
“Whoever is responsible for this mess should be fired,” said a woman in an American flag bucket hat who identified herself only as Regina R. “They’re not even coming out here to talk. … I’ve asked to talk to them, to suggest to them that we need to be the first ones in who are waiting on the steps. She doesn’t even want to hear them. I don’t want to hear me.”
She was later removed by security.
Inside, people didn’t know where to walk or sit or stand, and as organizers tried to accommodate everyone who’d been waiting, they delayed the reading.
Meanwhile, hundreds of uniformed members of what appeared to be Patriot Front, a white supremacist group, marched through the city and toward the Capitol. Their faces covered in white masks, the men carried shields, drums and flags — some upside down, others Confederate — as they chanted, “Reclaim America!”
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