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