America’s rich tradition of July Fourth protest is worth recalling

No Kings and other protests opposing the policies and executive overreach of the Trump administration continue to draw crowds across the country, most recently on Flag Day, June 14, which was also the president’s 80th birthday. While critics have denounced these demonstrators as un-American — House Speaker Mike Johnson called a 2025 No Kings march a “hate America rally” — those voicing dissent, pushing for change and speaking truth to power are, in fact, participating in a tradition at our nation’s core.

That tradition dates back to July 4, 1776, when the Continental Congress, citing a list of grievances, declared independence from the rule of a would-be despot, King George III. The founders’ act of resistance set an example that ordinary Americans would follow. According to historian David Waldstreicher, citizens in the early republic used celebrations not just to commemorate independence, but to lay claim to the lofty principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence, namely that all are created equal, that they have unalienable rights, and that government is instituted to secure those rights, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.

The custom continued for two-plus centuries, with Americans regularly marching, picketing, or otherwise taking to the streets on the Fourth to realize a more perfect union.

Perhaps the most famous Independence Day protest occurred in 1876 in Philadelphia. As tens of thousands gathered for the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park to celebrate a century of American progress in the arts, in industry, and in economic development, Susan B. Anthony protested the fact that half the nation, women, remained unable to vote and were thus without the unalienable rights named in the declaration.

Anthony and a determined group of suffragists attempted to introduce a statement drafted by the National Woman Suffrage Association into the exhibition’s official proceedings. When Joseph Hawley, president of the United States Centennial Commission, prevented the women from doing so, Anthony led a procession to Independence Hall, where she read aloud the suffragists’ “Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States” to a crowd that quickly gathered around her. Patterned after the original declaration, the text condemned the government for denying women the franchise, before ending with a clear demand: “We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”

It took decades of nonviolent action before Congress passed the 19th Amendment, granting women the constitutional right to vote. But Anthony’s principled stance contributed to a rich history of July Fourth protests that continued a century later, as the nation prepared to mark the Bicentennial.

America’s rich tradition of July Fourth protest is worth recalling.

On July 4, 1976, approximately 10,000 to 15,000 demonstrators massed in Washington, D.C., on America’s 200th birthday. Assembled by the People’s Bicentennial Commission, a New Left group, near the Jefferson Memorial, they marched to the U.S. Capitol under a banner reading, “Independence from Big Business.”

The group’s populist call for economic democracy resonated in the mid-1970s, when the country was still reeling from a divisive war (Vietnam), a constitutional crisis (Watergate), and an economic recession that saw both inflation (5.97% in July 1976) and unemployment (7.6%) soar. Many people signed the commission’s “Declaration of Economic Independence” calling for limits on concentrated corporate power in the interest of the common good. “We, therefore, the Citizens of the United States of America,” the declaration stated, “hereby call for the abolition of these giant institutions of tyranny … to provide for the equal and democratic participation of all American Citizens in the economic decisions … that effect … our Nation.”

Other protests occurred across the country, in Detroit and Chicago, as well as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. Even Salt Lake City witnessed a small demonstration — albeit on Saturday, July 3, so as not to disturb the Christian Sabbath.

The largest gatherings, though, were in Philadelphia, where more than 3,000 demonstrators gathered in Norris Square, under the auspices of a group called the Rich Off Our Backs Coalition, to march for jobs and income and economic justice — backed by fatigue-wearing Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who chanted: “One, two, three, four, we won’t fight a rich man’s war.”

Another group, the July 4th Coalition, rallied 30,000-plus in Fairmount Park, site of the Bicentennial, to demand Puerto Rican independence, greater rights for Black Americans, Native Americans, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, and much else. Karen DeCrow, president of the National Organization for Women, reread the declaration Susan B. Anthony had introduced a century earlier to flag the limited progress the nation had made toward gender equity since 1876. Black Panther leader Elaine Brown, a native Philadelphian, decried America’s 200-year history of racism.

Despite opposition — Mayor Frank Rizzo famously requested 15,000 federal troops to maintain order — the demonstrations remained peaceful. Organizers won plaudits even from those who did not necessarily agree with their critiques. Protesters had a right, The Inquirer editors agreed, to call attention to America’s shortcomings, as they saw them. Dissent was as integral to the Fourth of July as bunting and brass bands: Its existence confirmed “the strength and genius of American democracy.”

Today, according to polls, Americans typically mark Independence Day by barbecuing, shooting fireworks, going to the beach, viewing a parade, traveling, watching patriotic movies, or relaxing at home. Participating in a protest, demonstration, rally, or other nonviolent action does not rate a mention.

That’s certainly understandable. These days are exhausting, and we all just want a break, a moment to have a laugh with family and friends.

Yet, America’s rich tradition of July Fourth protest is worth recalling, especially at a time when the nation’s democratic institutions are under stress, for it once served as an essential tool that enabled Americans to hold their leaders to account for the words of 1776. We, the people, have never quite realized those words — written principally by a slave owner, Thomas Jefferson.

But for 250 years and counting, the Declaration of Independence has set a “moral standard,” as historian Pauline Maier has argued, to which not only feminists and civil rights activists but civil libertarians and laborers have turned time and again in pursuit of liberty from their oppressors, be those would-be tyrants, foreign or domestic.

M. Todd Bennett, a professor of history at East Carolina University, and David McKean, former director of policy planning in the U.S. Department of State, are the authors of “The Flag Was Still There: A History of the American Experiment in Five Anniversaries” (PublicAffairs, 2026).

Made By History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of The Inquirer.