Constitution Celebration to Begin Sept. 16 at Capitol

The Constitution’s 200th birthday celebration will begin Sept. 16 in Washington with President Reagan leading the nation in a reading of the Pledge of Allegiance, former Chief Justice Warren Burger announced Thursday.

The scene of the festivities will shift the next day to Philadelphia, where the Constitutional Convention met in the summer of 1787.

Burger, who is chairman of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, told a news conference that he hoped the celebration would help the American people “have a better understanding, not just of the Constitution, but of the system it created.”

‘No Place Else in World’

“There was no place else in the world that guaranteed freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of meeting and freedom of the press in 1787,” he said.

The Washington activities are scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m., on the West front lawn of the Capitol, with entertainment by school bands.

The official celebration, which the bicentennial commission is calling “A Celebration of Citizenship,” will begin at 1:30 p.m. with Reagan’s reading of the pledge from the steps of the Capitol.

He will be joined by Burger, who will read the Preamble to the Constitution; Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.), House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) and an audience of children expected to number in the thousands.

In addition to the national ceremony that day, the bicentennial commission has organized a daylong teach-in on the Constitution at public schools across the country.