On Independence Day in Lake Geneva, the chalked words of the founding fathers are called graffiti.
On Independence Day in Lake Geneva, city employees are called in to wash away the words of Dr. Martin Luther King.
On Independence Day in Lake Geneva, free speech is held hostage by a man with a uniform and a gun.
In the early morning hours of July 4th, four of my friends and I took to the streets of Lake Geneva with sidewalk chalk. For three hours, we adorned the sidewalks with quotes. Quotes about freedom and liberty, America and the world, peace and love, justice and hope. Quotes like, “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools” (Dr. King); and, “Be the change you seek in the world” (Gandhi); and, “Freedom is the last, best hope of the earth” (Abraham Lincoln). We drew peace signs on rocks and benches. We wrote the inscription of the Statue of Liberty on the busiest corner in town:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

We wrote “let there be love” in four-foot high letters in a crosswalk. We wrote the words of revolutionaries and presidents, and men who were both. In short, we wrote the words that changed the world. And we wrote them for all to see.

For our aim was to make people think. We feel that Independence Day, a holiday dedicated to the celebration of our country’s finest virtues, is being lost. It’s being replaced by the Fourth of July, a holiday dedicated to partying and shooting off fireworks.

Our goal was a simple one. We wanted to remind passersby of the true meaning of this holiday. We wanted them to think about what it means to live in the first country in human history where free speech is not a privilege, but a right. We wanted them to think about the people who for the last two hundred years have fought to uphold that most essential of promises: “… all men are created equal…” We wanted them to think and say “thank you,” to nod and think “it’s true.”

But the City of Lake Geneva did not want people to think. And at five in the morning on the 4th of July, just as we started down Main Street, we were stopped by the police. We were threatened with tickets and lectured. We were informed that public property is not for the public to write on, and that the words of Abraham Lincoln do not belong on government pavement. We were told that city employees would be along shortly to wash away our “graffiti.” And they were.

And at six in the morning in the City of Lake Geneva, two-hundred and thirty one years after they were written, the words of Thomas Jefferson were washed away.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Washed away so nobody would read them. Washed away on a day dedicated to their writing. That is how the City of Lake Geneva celebrates Independence Day. So I ask you, please, fight back. Read the words that were washed away a few days ago in Lake Geneva. Read them in their original form in these pictures, and for those we did not reach in time to save, read below.

And remember, there is always hope, for every battle brings some small victory. The city employees missed one quote.

Sam Ward-Packard,
July 6, 2008

[Will edit with full list of quotes when I get it from my co-conspiritors]
[Hopefully you can get access to the photo album, if you can’t, let me know, and I’ll try to change that]