The Fourth of July is still more than two months away, but many communities are preemptively canceling their celebrations due to the coronavirus.
From Chicago to Minneapolis to central Ohio to Redwood City, California, local towns and counties across the country are warning their residents that the community-wide potlucks, parades, and even fireworks displays that characterize our annual Independence Day celebrations won’t be happening this year.
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“I think we were all hoping that Illinois would’ve peaked and maybe we could’ve gotten it under the wire,” Ray Semple, one of the trustees of Mundelein, a town outside of Chicago, told the Daily Herald.
Mundelein typically throws a three-day festival to celebrate Independence Day, featuring carnival games, food booths, musical performances, and a fireworks show. The event attracts about 10,000 people each year.
That’s a crowd Mundelein’s city officials weren’t willing to risk due to concerns that a lack of social distancing could worsen Illinois’s COVID-19 outbreak.
So, Mundelein’s board voted to cancel the event and refund more than $28,000 in donations, fees, and deposits local businesses had made.
“It’s a weird year,” Semple said.
Minnesota’s communities are in the same position. Nearly every single one of the towns surrounding Minneapolis agreed to cancel their Independence Day celebrations after the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board announced it would cancel its summer programming altogether.
The problem is that for many of these towns, the Fourth of July isn’t just a big party; it’s also a fundraiser. Afton, Minnesota’s Independence Day parade, for example, typically raises about $3,500 in alcohol sales for the Afton Historical Museum, according to the Pioneer Press. And in Granville, Ohio, the four-day Fourth of July fair also serves as the Kiwanis Club’s largest fundraiser, according to the Newark Advocate. Both towns have canceled these events.
It’s worth noting what the Fourth of July represents and why we celebrate it at all. It’s a celebration of freedom, patriotism, and the unassailable rights our founders fought a war to protect. So it’s cruel, then, that on this year’s Independence Day, many communities will be in government-mandated lockdowns far more onerous than anything George III ever imposed.
These preemptive cancellations might indeed be necessary. But it’s worth wondering whether governing officials have been too eager to restrict certain freedoms in their haste to protect the public health. Time will tell.
