What’s not to love about a summertime holiday that starts with a freedom run and ends with fireworks?
Americans can all agree to be grateful for the freedoms we enjoy. As we approach the 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2025, let’s take a moment to celebrate with knowledge, traditions, and good intentions.
1. Learn about Greensboro’s role in America’s independence.
No Independence Day should begin without honoring the Revolutionary War heroes who fought for America’s freedom from British rule. Some of those heroes fought right here on Guilford County soil. A stroll through Guilford Courthouse National Military Park teaches you all you need to know about this turning point in the Revolutionary War.
“The Battle of Guilford Courthouse, militarily speaking, was a defeat for the Americans,” explains Greg O’Brien, department head at UNCG’s Department of History. “However, it did inflict a lot of damage on Lord Charles Cornwallis’ British troops, and it cut off some of his supply lines.”
The impact of the American troops led by our city’s namesake, Gen. Nathanael Greene, forced Cornwallis into a retreat to Virginia. American diligence, and help from the French army and navy, led to the British’s surrender just seven months later to Gen. George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown.
Today, visitors will find Guilford Courthouse National Military Park preserved for its historical significance and natural beauty. Located just six miles from downtown Greensboro, the park has paved roads, paths for bikers, and hiking trails covering 250 wooded acres.
Take a walk and encounter 29 monuments honoring battle events and soldiers like Greene. A cell phone tour of the Hoskins’ Farm explores the preserved home that was captured by the British for Cornwallis’ deployments. Also find battle artifacts and educational exhibits in the visitor’s center.
2. Dig into some good ol’ American food!
Perhaps the most popular way folks in the United States celebrate the Fourth of July is with a cookout. Hot dogs and hamburgers are the feast of the day, whether you’re flipping them on your backyard grill or watching Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Championship covered live from Coney Island by ESPN each year.
We can thank German immigrants for the hot dogs and hamburgers we enjoy on the Fourth. Here in North Carolina, you’ll find these grilled meats served alongside potato salad and fresh watermelon, but across the country, folks will indulge in a slice of apple pie, the most American of desserts.
UNCG has preserved a North Carolina Cookbook Collection of classic recipes in the Martha Blakeny Hodges Special Collection. In it is an apple pie recipe that is over 70 years old. Check it out today before you decide what you’re bringing to the Fourth of July cookout on Friday.
3. Join Greensboro’s Fun Fourth traditions.
A Greensboro Grasshoppers baseball game followed by an ice cream cone from Yum Yum’s sounds like a perfect summer outing, but on the Fourth of July, locals take their plans up a notch. Downtown Greensboro hosts a Fun Fourth Festival that brings out the patriot in us all!
The day kicks off with a Freedom Run, which has racecourses through downtown Greensboro for all skill levels: 10K, 5K, and a one-mile Fun Run. After that, the Freedom Fest brings locals to Elm Street for music, street performers, food, and craft vendors from 1 to 6 p.m.
Greensboro’s Fun Fourth ends with a 6 p.m. concert featuring Sleeping Booty at First Horizon Bank Park, followed by the tradition everyone looks forward to… fireworks!
When asked about the significance of fireworks, O’Brien referred to a famous letter from John Adams to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776: “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
4. Contemplate your own American dream.
Celebrating national independence also makes us introspective about how we can benefit from our freedom. The Declaration of Independence’s key passage reads, “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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”
Are you happy? Do you feel free? How could you be? Can you find a more fulfilling or better-paying job? Can you take better advantage of civil services or better serve the community around you?
UNCG is proud to be the top-ranked North Carolina institution for social mobililty, meaning that a UNCG degree often helps graduates make more money and enjoy better lifestyles than the families they grew up in. In fact, social mobility is just another term for “the American dream,” and that’s true whether you are an immigrant, Native American, or descended from soldiers of the Revolutionary War.
If Independence Day inspires you to pursue your own happiness, consider how UNCG can help you achieve a more advanced degree or a career path that could bring you more opportunities and make your life more…free. Maybe this year’s July Fourth will offer the spark you need to start your own internal revolution!
Story by Becky Deakins, University Communications.
Photos by Sean Norona, University Communications.
