Seanna Baldwin, UVA Student: We are in the dome room in the Rotunda celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of Declaration of Independence.

Scott Beardsley, UVA President: First of all, we’re the only University founded by three presidents, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and we are the only University that has two copies of the Declaration of Independence.

Mary Kate Cary, UVA Assistant Vice President: But yeah, I think this has been a great thing for UVA and it’s been a great thing for the Declaration on President’s Day. The line has been out the door all day long. School groups, retirees, tons of students, faculty, community members.

Scott Beardsley, UVA President: So, if you want to have a bucket list item, you’ll see two Declarations of Independence in one go. And only at UVA can you do that.

[A saxophone playing “Happy Birthday”]

Michael Slon, UVA Director of Choral Music and Professor: Special piece for you by Todd Frasier of the words of the Declaration of Independence.

The University Singers: We hold these truths.

Lauren Duval, Karsh Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Democracy, reading from the 1848 Speech by Elizabeth Cady Stanton: July 19th, 1848. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal.

Seanna Baldwin reading from the July 4, 1965 Sermon by Martin Luther King Jr.: And that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Student 1 reading from the 2013 Second Inaugural Address by Barack Obama: We recall that what binds this nation together is not the color of our skin or the tenants of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional, what makes us American, is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago.

Student 2 reading from the 1965 “We Shall Overcome” Address by Lyndon B. Johnson: This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, north and south. All men are created equal.

Sheri Winston, Director for the Rotunda and University Events, reading from the 1978 “That’s What America Is” Sppech by Harvey Milk: That’s what America is. No matter how hard you try, you cannot erase those words from the Declaration of Independence. No matter how hard you try, you cannot chip those words from off the base of the Statue of Liberty. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot sing the Star-Spangled Banner without those words.

Lauren Duval: The way it’s reverberated throughout American history and has popped up again and again as these guiding principles for the nation. It’s just a wonderful celebration to be able to have this here at UVA and bring the public in to share this moment.

The University Singers: O’re the land of the free and the home of the brave.