Citizenship Day Used to Be Called ‘I Am an American Day.’ Here’s How It Came to Be—and Why It...

21 May 1944 - I Am An American Day (Now known as Citizenship Day)

Long before Citizenship Day (17 Sep) was made official, there was “I Am An American Day.” Its initial conception was a sign of its times, and its evolution has been significant too.

The most famous “I Am An American Day” ceremony took place on May 21, 1944, when judge Learned Hand addressed a crowd of 1.5 million who attended a ceremony where 150,000 people were becoming American citizens in Central Park in New York City. He described the U.S. as a nation of immigrants “who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land” to seek “the spirit of liberty,” which is a “freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves.” It’s that spirit, he said, “for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying.”