Guest Post by Ken Paulson, President, First Amendment Center
James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the boys would have been all over Twitter.
There’s no question that the nation’s founding fathers would have embraced social media as a logical extension of their own commitment to freedom of speech and press. Today’s digital marketplace of ideas is exactly what they had in mind.
That intersection of traditional American freedoms and emerging technologies is at the heart of a new educational effort called “Free to Tweet,” a campaign organized and supported by a coalition of educators, librarians, artists and journalists to remind young people about the value of these core freedoms.
There’s a lot of reminding to be done. Only three percent of Americans can name the five freedoms of the First Amendment, reflecting a lack of attention to these core liberties in the nation’s classrooms. Surveys show that young people can far more readily name the lead characters of The Simpsons than the freedoms of speech, press, religion, petition and assembly.
To help build understanding, we’re using Twitter (follow us @1forallus) as a platform for an unprecedented campaign in support of the Bill of Rights. On December 15, young people between the ages of 14-22 who tweet in support of the First Amendment will be entered into a competition in which they can win one of 22 $5,000 scholarships by using the hashtag #freetotweet.
The contest, funded by the Knight Foundation, is tied to the 220th birthday of the Bill of Rights, a largely forgotten date in American history.
It’s not as though no one ever attempted to give this day the respect it deserves. On Aug. 21, 1941, a joint resolution of Congress called on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to designate a day in honor of the Bill of Rights.
On Nov. 28 , 1941, the Los Angeles Times reported that “President Roosevelt today called on the American people to observe Dec. 15 as ‘Bill of Rights Day,’ to cherish the ‘immeasurable privileges which the charter guaranteed’ and to rededicate its principles and practice.” FDR called on government officials to fly the flag and for all Americans to “observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and prayer,” noting that Adolf Hitler’s greatest fear was our freedom of speech, press and religion.
Then came Pearl Harbor and World War II, and the national celebration never really caught on. It’s the holiday that got away.
We’re trying to remedy that with a virtual rally on behalf of First Amendment freedoms on its 220th birthday.
All Americans are urged to join us in tweeting on Dec. 15 and help generate the kind of attention and energy that this date so richly deserves.
The irony is that most of us honor the Fourth of July because we believe it’s a day on which Americans secured their freedom. But the truth is that the Declaration of Independence really only secured freedom for white and wealthy men. It took freedom of speech, press, religion, petition and assembly — the five freedoms of the First Amendment — to lead to suffrage for women, the emancipation of slaves and equality for all.
Twitter is the perfect platform for conveying freedom of speech in as quick and contemporary a manner as possible. James Madison would be proud.