When I was a kid, we celebrated the Fourth of July by picnicking in the back yard in the shade of a huge wild cherry tree.

There was fried chicken, potato salad, lemonade and chilled watermelon swimming in a metal washtub filled with ice. My brother Jason and I helped Dad crank the handle on a wooden bucket that magically turned a milky soup into sweet vanilla ice cream.

After we messed up the table (and attracted a platoon of tiny black ants), we helped the grown-ups clean up.

Then Dad reached into a tattered envelope, pulled out a yellowed newspaper, and carefully unfolded a full-page reproduction of the Declaration of Independence.

It was the family custom that each person at the July Fourth party takes a turn at reading parts of the document that made us Americans.

Dad would start: “In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” Then he would pause and take a deep breath and continue: “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

And then he handed it to me, and I read the sacred words: “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.”

And then we took turns reading the words that officially picked a fight with the only government we had ever known and set us free from King George's rule.

Dad would always read the last passage. “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

Of course, the King objected to the colonists’ actions, and you know the rest.

But did you know the events that led up to the Declaration could be similar to those of today?

In 1770, some Boston residents resented the way British soldiers policed their city. Sometimes the Boston folk yelled insults as others threw stuff at the soldiers.

One of those confrontations occurred on March 5, when a crowd pushed back at a group of British soldiers. The red coats opened fire, killing five men in what we now know as the Boston Massacre. Legend has it that the first man killed was a Black man, a former slave, a sailor, and a dock worker named Crispus Attucks.

The protesters demanded the soldiers be arrested for murder. Surprise, they were put on trial, and, to no surprise, they were acquitted. Ironically, they were defended by a prominent defense lawyer named John Adams. Yes, he was the same John Adams who was later elected president.

A few years later, in what the history books call a brazen and radical protest against Great Britain, a group of Bostonians rowed out into the harbor, climbed aboard three English ships, and dumped their cargo into the water. It is known as the Boston Tea Party.

Those incidents, the harassment of authority, the slaying of a Black man along with other protesters and other “brazen and radical protests,” were among the dozens and dozens of different actions that led to the creation of the nation whose 244th birthday we celebrated last weekend. We see similar incidents in today's news.

Ironically, back in Indianapolis, where I grew up, a KKK-backed school board decided Black kids should not go to school with white kids. So they pulled all the Black kids out of other schools and sent them to a new high school. It was named after Crispus Attucks.

In another note to my New England round ball fans, that school produced the finest basketball player in Hoosier basketball history. No, Boston Celtic fans, the greatest hoops star who claimed Indiana as his home was not named Larry Bird. It was the Big “O,” Oscar Robertson, who led the Crispus Attucks “Flying Tigers” to a state championship, later led the nation in college scoring, and scored more than 26,000 points in a 14-year NBA career.

He was a great player, but was, and is, a fine man. His greatest accomplishment was when he donated a kidney to save the life of his daughter Tia. “It's just something a parent would do,” he said. “I'm no hero. I'm just a father.”

Happy Birthday to us all.