RADICAL ACTS presents

Declarations of IN(TER)DEPENDENCE

Living in the Legacy of the Declaration of Independence

A Three Day Event (re)considering and contextualizing the Idea of American Revolution on the Celebration of US Independence through a series of texts from American History.

Presented by Radical Acts of Iron Age Theatre with support from Theatre in the X

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

DAy 1: JULY 3, 2020

History as a FRAMEWORK for INdependence

Video 1: “The Brooklyn Bridge & The Spirit of the Fourth” by Howard Zinn 1975

presented by Bob Weick

 

Video 2: from The American Crisis by Thomas Paine 1777

A passionate plea for action and independence with a lean toward ideas still in our social justice movements today.

presented by Adam Altman


Video 3: “Power Anywhere Where There’s People” by Fred Hampton 1969

Hampton, echoing MLK, makes it clear that revolution must come if people are excluded from the mountain top.

presented by Richard Bradford


Video 4: “See It Now” by Edward R. Murrow 1954

Murrow makes the case for the legitimacy of dissent when the national narrative is inhumane or unjust.

presented by Robert DaPonte

 

Day 2: JUlY 4, 2020

Taking a Stand for Independence

Video 1:Speech before Free Speech Movement Sit-In”

by Mario Savio 1964

Mario Savio, voice of the Berkley student Free Speech Movement (FSM), protested against the University’s limiting of political activity on the Berkeley campus. This expert crystallizes the potency of his vision of a committed revolutionary.

presented by Luke Moyer

Video 2: “Mother’s Day Proclamation” by Julia Ward Howe 1870

After the Civil War, abolitionist Julia Ward Howe made a Mother’s Day call to women to protest the carnage of war and cry out for the need for peace and respect for women’s voices..

presented by Michelle Pauls

Video 3: Letter from Delano by Cesar Chavez 1969

Chavez Immigrant rights and Labor activist wrote this letter to the Delano Grape Company as an act of protest to expresses the importance of equal opportunities for Latino workers and fair treatment under the law.

presented by Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez

Video 4: Three Poems from the Angel Island Immigration Station Poetry - Author’s Unknown 1910-1940

These poems are written by Asian immigrant her for long and inhumane periods of time as they tried to emigrate into America through San Francisco.

presented by Twoey Truong

 

Day 3: JuLY 5, 2020

Finding a Future after the Revolution

Video 1: “Plan for the Reconstruction of Los Angeles” from the Crips and Bloods 1992

More than 25 years ago, two groups recognized as criminal gangs proposed a transformation of the police and a vision for a new more humane structure to law enforcement and addressed their own responsibility in the rebuilding of their community.

Presented by Steven Wright

Video 2: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? 1852 by Frederick Douglass

Before the future can be considered, the revolution needs to be in context and this speech by Douglass questions the celebration about its incomplete offer of freedom.

presented by Maurice Tucker (Juneteenth 2011 performance)


Video 3: I want a Dyke for President by Zoe Leonard 1992

presented by Mary Tuomanen

Leonard’s potent unflinching poem makes a case for those who have not had access to all of the freedoms promised by the revolution and calls their names to place them in our public conversation so we can see what America can be when its diversity is embraced fully and its marginalized are cared for and respected.


Video 4: Let America be America by Langson Hughes 1935

Presented by LaNeshe Miller-White Richard Bradford, and Eric Carter of Theatre in the X

Recorded and edited by by Dwayne Thomas

 

Video Shot by Dwayne Thomas and the Cast of Declarations of Interdependence Post Production: Iron Age Theatre

If you would like to sponsor the event, please contact us.

Designed by John Doyle and Richard Bradford and Bob Weick