El Grito de Independencia: What Happens at Midnight on September 15th

Every September 15th, at exactly 11 p.m., the President of Mexico steps onto the central balcony of the National Palace, which faces the Zócalo — the enormous plaza at the heart of Mexico City — where hundreds of thousands of people are gathered, waving flags, wearing green and white and red, and waiting. The President rings a bell that has hung there since 1896 — the same bell Miguel Hidalgo rang in the parish church of Dolores in 1810 to call his congregation to rise. And then the President shouts. The crowd shouts back. This is el Grito de Independencia. And it happens the night *before* Mexico's Independence Day because the moment the story begins — the moment Hidalgo rang the bell and cried out — was the night of September 15th, not the morning of the 16th. **Why the Night of September 15th** The grito de Dolores — Hidalgo's original cry — happened in the early hours of September 16th by most historical accounts, somewhere between midnight and dawn. But Mexican tradition places the commemoration on the evening of September 15th, so that the bell rings, the shout goes up, and then the morning of the 16th arrives as Independence Day proper. It's a natural progression: you celebrate at midnight, and you wake up to the fiesta. It also means that the ceremony happens when Mexico is alive and watching — not at 2 a.m., but at 11 p.m. on a national holiday eve, when families are gathered and the Zócalo is packed. **The Bell of Dolores** The Campana de la Independencia — the Independence Bell — is not a metaphor. It is an actual cast-iron bell that hung in the parish church of Dolores Hidalgo in Guanajuato for more than a century before President Porfirio Díaz had it transported to Mexico City and installed above the balcony of the National Palace in 1896, in time for the eighty-sixth anniversary of independence. When it was moved, it became a relic. Historians debate whether this exact bell was the one Hidalgo rang in 1810 — the historical record isn't unambiguous. But the Mexican people decided it was, and in that decision, the bell became sacred. You don't need to verify the provenance of a thing that carries the weight of a nation's founding. You ring it, and everyone understands what the ringing means. **The Words of the Grito** The original words Hidalgo spoke on the night of September 15-16, 1810 are not precisely known. Contemporary accounts differ. Some say he invoked the Virgin of Guadalupe. Some say he named specific enemies. The *Grito de Dolores* was not scripted — it was a priest calling his people to revolution at the last possible moment. The modern version is formalized. The current President's Grito — which varies slightly depending on the President — generally includes: *¡Mexicanos! ¡Vivan los héroes que nos dieron patria y libertad!* *¡Viva Hidalgo! ¡Viva Morelos! ¡Viva Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez! ¡Viva Allende!* *¡Vivan los héroes de la Patria!* *¡Viva la independencia nacional!* *¡Viva México! ¡Viva México! ¡Viva México!* Each *¡Viva!* from the President is answered by the crowd. The names change slightly depending on which historical figures a particular president chooses to honor, and which names the crowd expects to hear shouted into the night. The inclusion of Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez — La Corregidora — became standard in more recent years. She was the local magistrate's wife who, upon discovering the independence plot had been uncovered by royalist forces, found a way to warn Hidalgo. Without her, the uprising would likely have been arrested before it started. Her inclusion in the Grito is a correction of history, a recognition that the revolution was not won by men alone. **How Communities Across the Diaspora Do It** Mexican consulates in the United States hold their own Grito ceremonies on the night of September 15th, open to the community. Mexican mayors and governors hold ceremonies in their cities. Community organizations set up events in parks and plaza-equivalents in neighborhoods where the population is large enough to fill them. In the absence of a formal ceremony, families do it themselves. Someone calls out the names. Someone rings whatever they have — a cowbell, a hand bell, the heel of a boot on the floor. The crowd, even if it's just a kitchen full of cousins, shouts back: *¡Viva!* You have done this. Or you have watched the people you love do this and felt something — pride, or the particular tenderness of watching your family be fully, unselfconsciously themselves. The Grito crossed the border a long time ago. It lives wherever Mexican and Mexican-American people gather on the night of September 15th and choose to remember what the bell means. *¡Viva México!* *Keep reading: [El Dieciséis de Septiembre: The Real Mexican Holiday We've Always Celebrated](/blogs/news/dieciseis-de-septiembre-mexican-independence-day) | [Hispanic Heritage Month: The Real History Behind September 15th](/blogs/news/hispanic-heritage-month-history-meaning)* ---