United States Declaration of Independence

• Schools/Students Across America Invited to Commemorate the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party [December 16, 2023]
  "The Boston Tea Party is the 'single most important event leading up to the American Revolution'," says Shawn Ford, Executive Director of the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum.
• A tea donation drive is currently underway where schools/students across the United States can participate by sending loose-leaf tea to Boston be thrown into Boston Harbor as part of the 250th Boston Tea Party Anniversary reenactment.
• Send dried loose-leaf tea (NO used tea bags) to: Boston Tea Party 250th Anniversary, Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, 306 Congress St, Boston, MA 02210.
• 250th Boston Tea Party Anniversary LIVE Reenactment - Saturday, December 16, 2023
  The 250th anniversary year will culminate in a grand-scale, live reenactment of the Boston Tea Party on the actual anniversary of the Boston Tea Party - Saturday, December 16, 2023.

• "It's somewhat fitting that we launched our partnership, which allows advisors to declare their independence, in conjunction with the holiday where we celebrate America's independence," said Jim Gold, CEO and Co-Founder of Steward Partners.
• "We are fully committed to helping our partners grow their businesses to reach their full potential by continually providing enhancements to our platform and through strategic alliances with firms that can contribute to that mission," added Hy Saporta, President, Chief Operating Officer, Co-Founder of Steward Partners.
• Whatever we do is for the betterment of our partners and their clients."
• Selected Highlights of Steward Partners' 10-Year Evolution:

• Since 2021, at least 28 states have adopted measures that restrict how teachers can teach the history of racism in the U.S.
• Some observers have posited that the wave of new education laws will have a chilling effect on how history is taught.
• But a close look at these laws shows that they are generally written so broadly that they can’t effectively stop teachers from teaching history in a way that’s fair, accurate and true.

Weaknesses seen

• Critical race theory is a concept that holds that racism is not just something that takes place among individuals, but rather has been embedded in American law and policy.
• Some, such as law professor Jonathan Feingold, go so far as to say most of the laws actually call for more CRT, not less.
• However, I do see a lot of leeway and loopholes in the laws.

Focus on the free market

• To make this more relatable to children, teachers could discuss something that every child understands: food and hunger.
• Teachers can point out that for all the prowess of America’s free market, before the Civil War, that free market was largely dependent on the violence and forced labor that slavery involved.

Examining the concept of liberty

• So were most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, which famously describes liberty as an “inalienable” God-given right.
• Teachers could also examine the starkly different visions of liberty that developed over time.

Paying homage to freed men in battle

• This serves as a great reason to teach about formerly enslaved men – including those who were awarded the Medal of Honor – who joined the Union army and helped defeat the Confederacy.
• By studying these men and the reason they received these medals, students will learn the role that Black people themselves played in the abolition of slavery – the largest expansion of liberty in American history.

• At his potential second inauguration, he would be 82, beating himself in becoming the oldest among American presidents.
• In 1783, for example, at age 51, Gen. George Washington resigned his military commission and took a hard look at himself.
• Washington wasn’t that old, really, although the average life expectancy in that era was 38.
• Old people today, so to speak, are much younger than they used to be, especially when they are wealthy.

Old ‘machines,’ giving way

• In opposition to “the Old England vices,” America was envisioned as springing out from the creativity of the young.
• During a period when medicine and knowledge of human anatomy were all but rudimentary, old age terrified everyone.
• But it would be wrong to assume that the founding generation simply despised old age.
• Young America admired venerable old sages – Moses of the Bible, first and foremost.

Prophetic old age

• He looked like a sage, a living classic “contemporary with Plato,” as if he had come directly from “the age of Cato and of Fabius.” While Franklin was much more than just someone performing a task, old leaders, back then, could still look to the future and attend to many types of tasks as well.
• In 1798, after he had completed two terms as president, a worn-out Washington, age 66, was ready to serve again in a military capacity.
• In what he described as “the Hobby of my old age” he devised, organized and built a public university, the University of Virginia.
• The University of Virginia, Jefferson believed, would create better leaders who would halt the “threatening cloud of fanaticism” polluting the “atmosphere of our country.” Biden is old.
• Yet, had he lived in that earlier age, like his more illustrious predecessors, his value would have likely outweighed his deficits in the eyes of his country – a youthful country fighting against the ossified leadership of its British colonial overlords, but also aware of the wisdom that certain old leaders could still provide.