by Tammy Ditmore | Jun 11, 2026 | Countdown to Semiquincentennial
As we saw, after two sessions in a committee of the whole, the Second Continental Congress came to a stalemate on the Lee resolution for independence. It would be tabled for three weeks, until July 1. But, as both Thomson’s journal entry and Jefferson’s notes agree,...
by Tammy Ditmore | Jun 10, 2026 | Countdown to Semiquincentennial
Delegates must have been primed to resume discussion of the proposed resolution for independence on Monday morning, although by this point the positions – but not the outcome — must have been well established and well known. I haven’t read through Letters of the...
by Tammy Ditmore | Jun 9, 2026 | Countdown to Semiquincentennial
My own focus on the Declaration of Independence has been almost exclusively textual and documentary. I’m humbled every time I return to the Revolutionary period by entire mountain ranges of scholarship and study I have not even imagined. One I have not well imagined...
by Tammy Ditmore | Jun 8, 2026 | Countdown to Semiquincentennial
Charles Thomson, the secretary for the Second Continental Congress, might be described as a minimalist with the journals – as John Adams later complained. (But to be fair, Adams’s complaint came a quarter-century later, and in large part because he expected the...
by Tammy Ditmore | Jun 7, 2026 | Countdown to Semiquincentennial
On June 7, 1776, (a Friday), Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee, on instructions from the Fifth Virginia Convention, formally proposed independence to the Second Continental Congress; John Adams seconded. Lee’s was the first formal independence proposal and can be...
by Tammy Ditmore | Feb 28, 2026 | Black History Month
Maya Angelou’s biography reads like a work of fiction. Angelou published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and multiple books of poetry, in addition to plays, movies, and cookbooks. She danced with Alvin Ailey, acted with James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson,...
by Tammy Ditmore | Feb 27, 2026 | Black History Month
Tom Bradley, the longest-serving mayor of Los Angeles, was born in 1917 to sharecropper parents in the small town of Calvert, Texas. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven, but his father soon abandoned Tom and his four siblings, leaving his mother to raise...
by Tammy Ditmore | Feb 26, 2026 | Black History Month
The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was the only all Black US Women’s Army Corps unit to serve overseas during World War II. The women were sent to Birmingham, England, in 1945 and asked to deal with a backlog of around 17 million pieces of mail! The...
by Tammy Ditmore | Feb 25, 2026 | Black History Month
My parents loved listening to Nat King Cole and frequently told me what a wonderful singer he was. Even today, my family still listens to Cole’s Christmas album because it’s just so pleasant and so classic. Cole was known for his smooth baritone and became...
by Tammy Ditmore | Feb 24, 2026 | Black History Month
Robert Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1839. At the start of the Civil War, Smalls was an enslaved crewmember on a Confederate transport ship operating in the Charleston harbor. In May 1862, he and other crewmembers sailed away with the...
