Flag Day is June 14th

June 13, 2015 by Charlie London

Flag Day in the United States

People across the United States celebrate Flag Day on June 14 each year to honor the United States flag and to commemorate the flag’s adoption. On the same day, the United States Army celebrates its birthday.

What do people do?

Flag Day in Faubourg St. John.
Flag Day in Faubourg St. John.
Flag Day falls within National Flag Week, a time when Americans reflect on the foundations of the nation’s freedom. The flag of the United States represents freedom and has been an enduring symbol of the country’s ideals since its early days. During both events, Americans also remember their loyalty to the nation, reaffirm their belief in liberty and justice, and observe the nation’s unity.

Many people in the United States honor this day by displaying the American flag at homes and public buildings. Other popular ways of observing this holiday include: flag-raising ceremonies; Flag Day services; school quizzes and essay competitions about the American flag; musical salutes; street parades; and awards for special recognition.

Organizations such as The National Flag Day Foundation are actively involved in coordinating activities centered on the event and keeping the flag’s traditions alive. Following Flag Day is Honor America Days, a 21-day period through to Independence Day (July 4) to honor America. During this period, people hold public gatherings and activities to celebrate and honor the nation.

Public life

Although Flag Day is a nationwide observance, it is not a public holiday in many parts of the United States. It is a legal holiday in a few areas in the USA, such as Montour County in Pennsylvania.

Background

On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress replaced the British symbols of the Grand Union flag with a new design featuring 13 white stars in a circle on a field of blue and 13 red and white stripes – one for each state. Although it is not certain, this flag may have been made by the Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross, who was an official flag maker for the Pennsylvania Navy. The number of stars increased as the new states entered the Union, but the number of stripes stopped at 15 and was later returned to 13.

In June 1886 Bernard Cigrand made his first public proposal for the annual observance of the birth of the flag when he wrote an article titled “The Fourteenth of June” in the old Chicago Argus newspaper. Cigrand’s effort to ensure national observance of Flag Day finally came when President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation calling for a nationwide observance of the event on June 14, 1916. However, Flag Day did not become official until August 1949, when President Harry Truman signed the legislation and proclaimed June 14 as Flag Day. In 1966, Congress also requested that the President issue annually a proclamation designating the week in which June 14 occurs as National Flag Week.

The President is requested to issue each year a proclamation to: call on government officials in the USA to display the flag of the United States on all government buildings on Flag Day; and to urge US residents to observe Flag Day as the anniversary of the adoption on June 14, 1777, by the Continental Congress of the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the United States.

Symbols

The American flag, also nicknamed as “Old Glory” or “star-spangled banner”, has changed designs over the centuries. It consists of 13 equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing 50 small, white, five-pointed stars. Each of the 50 stars represents one of the 50 states in the United States and the 13 stripes represent the original 13 colonies that became the first states in the Union.

The information above was obtained from:  http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/flag-day

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The idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as ‘Flag Birthday’. In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrand continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as ‘Flag Birthday’, or ‘Flag Day’.

On June 14, 1889, George Balch, a kindergarten teacher in New York City, planned appropriate ceremonies for the children of his school, and his idea of observing Flag Day was later adopted by the State Board of Education of New York. On June 14, 1891, the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia held a Flag Day celebration, and on June 14 of the following year, the New York Society of the Sons of the Revolution, celebrated Flag Day.

Following the suggestion of Colonel J Granville Leach (at the time historian of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution), the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America on April 25, 1893 adopted a resolution requesting the mayor of Philadelphia and all others in authority and all private citizens to display the Flag on June 14th. Leach went on to recommend that thereafter the day be known as ‘Flag Day’, and on that day, school children be assembled for appropriate exercises, with each child being given a small Flag.

Two weeks later on May 8th, the Board of Managers of the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution unanimously endorsed the action of the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames. As a result of the resolution, Dr. Edward Brooks, then Superintendent of Public Schools of Philadelphia, directed that Flag Day exercises be held on June 14, 1893 in Independence Square. School children were assembled, each carrying a small Flag, and patriotic songs were sung and addresses delivered.

In 1894, the governor of New York directed that on June 14 the Flag be displayed on all public buildings. With BJ Cigrand and Leroy Van Horn as the moving spirits, the Illinois organization, known as the American Flag Day Association, was organized for the purpose of promoting the holding of Flag Day exercises. On June 14th, 1894, under the auspices of this association, the first general public school children’s celebration of Flag Day in Chicago was held in Douglas, Garfield, Humboldt, Lincoln, and Washington Parks, with more than 300,000 children participating.

Adults, too, participated in patriotic programs. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, delivered a 1914 Flag Day address in which he repeated words he said the flag had spoken to him that morning: “I am what you make me; nothing more. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself.”

Inspired by these three decades of state and local celebrations, Flag Day – the anniversary of the Flag Resolution of 1777 – was officially established by the Proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson on May 30th, 1916. While Flag Day was celebrated in various communities for years after Wilson’s proclamation, it was not until August 3rd, 1949, that President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th of each year as National Flag Day.

Information above obtained from:  http://www.usflag.org/history/flagday.html

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Filed Under: Featured, HISTORY Tagged With: america, american flag, bayou st john, faubourg st john, flag day, forever shall it wave, louisiana, New Orleans, patriotism, united states

Fair Grinds Gets Jazzed Carts

April 2, 2012 by Charlie London

by Wade Rathke

I am writing this from Tegucigalpa having just returned from three days in the coffee mountains of Honduras in the world famous high altitude growing regions of San Juancito and Marcala. We have been meeting with lots of small and large cooperatives that grow organic and fair trade certified coffee to see if we can negotiate the “next step” improvement in the relationships between producers and consumers: direct trade.

In direct trade all sides benefit by cutting out the middlemen brokers who suck up a huge percentage of the “profit” benefitting neither side of the chain. We are getting a good reception and bringing back 30 pounds of coffee from various cooperatives (COMUCAP, RAOS, and COMISAJUL for example) so that our roaster can test them for our special Fair Grinds Coffeehouse blends. Then we will try to make a final deal, which won’t be easy, and in fact might not be possible this season except in a micro-lot for our own store, which unfortunately might make the whole proposition more expensive, since we would only be buying 2 tons of coffee for Fair Grinds. (Yes, you drink some coffee every year and more every day – muchas gracias!). We are hoping to find some partners to buy more and lower the price, but we will see. I’ll have more to report on this in coming weeks. It is very exciting, hugely educational, and heartwarming and heartbreaking experience, but the devil is in the details when our limited resources are part of the equation along with our desire to hold on to our prices to our community of coffee drinkers.

Katie put a postscript on a report the other day that, yes indeed, the new turkey sandwich is flying off the shelf. Many of you have probably noticed that we expanded the number of quiches and enlarged the empandas to make them a more substantial meal. Our suppliers have been our heroic partners in helping make Fair Grinds rock on the food side!

In April get ready for some surprises around Fair Grinds Coffeehouse and the greater New Orleans community as we debut our coffee “pop-ups” around the city and for Jazz Fest. We had two new coffee carts built, and we are finishing the last touches on the branding and so forth, and then rolling them out to areas where our customers have told us about “coffee deserts” that are desperate for Fair Grinds coffee at different times of the morning and afternoon. Hoping this works! We’re jazzed!!! Oh, and, yes, to accommodate the Jazz Fest crowd and our usual customer load, we’re going to have both carts set up in the patio and out front so we can operate several lines during the Festival and keep the crowds caffeinated and moving.

April again also looks like it’s going to be a musical month. Here’s the tentative schedule of coming musical attractions including local groups and talent from this area as well as folks from around the country. Check the Fair Grinds calendar at www.fairgrinds.com for more details on each performance.

Laura Stevenson and the Cans (Seattle) — Monday, April 2nd 8PM
Tom Maron and Daron Douglas – Friday, April 6th 8 PM
Open Mic with Robert Eustis – Thursday, April 12th 8PM
Jonathan Roniger – Saturday, April 14th 8PM
Joe Barbara – Thursday, April 19th 7:30 PM
Lips & Trips – Friday, April 20th 7:30 PM
Snail Party (Canada) – Saturday, April 21st 8 PM
Gallivan Burwell – Friday, April 27th 8PM
Kim and Sharon Apres-Fest (Mass) – Sunday, April 29th 8PM

Gotta run! One last cooperative meeting in minutes, so crossing my fingers that the price is right, because I love this group and its manager!

Stay well and see you soon at Fair Grinds!

Saludos!
Wade

Ps. You are missing something if you are not seeing the updates on our website and Facebook sites where we keep folks current! New features on history of coffeehouses and the real story behind chicory should be up in April along with MORE!

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: america, bayou, bayou st john, beans, carts, coffee, fair, Fair Grinds, faubourg, faubourg st john, fsjna, New Orleans, orleans, ponce de leon, rathke, rolling, south, trade, wade, wade rathke

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