Happy Birthday America -
Party for one, reflections on this 4th of July...
I ran into an emotional wall yesterday.
Here we are on our country’s birthday and I see a time filled with great loss more than any gain. It seems we have never really been united. Always in a state of division. Every election makes winners and losers in a game we can’t really afford to play when our humanity and our planet are at stake.
We are in a socio-political era of tug-o-war. Moral struggles result in one side feeling violated, the other validated. In name of this incredible experiment, democracy, we are poised for another fight. History repeats as we continue to show up to the polls in defense of not only our own freedoms, but an equality that allows others to live freely and out of a shadowed feeling that who they are is being diminished.
I find myself getting tangled up in words and emotions as I try to access my patriotism. I am proud of my father who came back from Vietnam a changed man. I am proud of my friends who struggle to pay rent and still find a little space in life for their dreams. I am proud of my family for finding a way forward while carrying the weight of grief. I am proud of a love that is enduring.
We all have truths like this. All of us.
Like all countries, we are a territory of trials and tribulations - heartbreaks and loss. The troubled reality of blood, sweat, and tears are our history. They will likely be part our future. This is the price of democracy as we find our way to truth, justice, and equality.
I read through a collection of Fourth of July speeches and see where we’ve come from. Renewed in hope for a future where we are not lost…
The common message. Keep going.
President John F. Kennedy “1962 Independence Day Speech”
at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 4th, 1962
Because our system is designed to encourage both differences and dissent, because it’s checks and balances are designed to preserve the rights of the individual and the locality against preeminent central authority, you and I governors, both recognize how dependent we both are, one upon another for the successful operation of our unique and happy form of government. Our system and our freedom permits the legislative to be pitted against the executive, the state against the federal government, the city against the countryside, the party against party, interest against interest, all in competition or in contention one with another…
…Today 186 years later, that declaration, whose yellowing parchment and fading, almost illegible lines, I saw in the past week in the National Archives in Washington, is still a revolutionary document. To read it today is to hear a trumpet call, for that declaration unleashed not merely a revolution against the British but a revolution in human affairs. It’s authors were highly conscious of its worldwide implications and George Washington declared that liberty and self government were in his words, “Finely staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
Read the full speech here.
Susan B. Anthony’s “Declaration of the Rights of the Woman of the United States” in Philadelphia on July 4, 1876.
“May not our hearts, in unison with all, swell with pride at our great achievements as a people. Our free speech, free press, free schools, free church, and the rapid progress we have made in material wealth, trade, commerce, and the inventive arts. And we do rejoice in the success thus far of our experiment of self-government.
Our faith is firm and unwavering in the broad principles of human rights proclaimed in 1776, not only as abstract truths, but as the cornerstones of a republic. Yet we cannot forget, even in this glad hour, that while all men of every race and clime and condition have been invested with the full rights of citizenship under our hospitable flag, all women still suffer the degradation of disenfranchisement. The history of our country the past hundred years has been a series of assumptions and usurpations of power over women in direct opposition to the principles of just government, acknowledged by the United States as its foundation.
… And now, at the close of a hundred years, as the hour hand of the great clock that marks the centuries points to 1876, we declare our faith in the principles of self-government, our full equality with man in natural rights. That woman was made first for her own happiness, with the absolute right to herself, to all the opportunities and advantages life affords for her complete development. And we deny that dogma of the centuries, incorporated in the codes of all nations, that woman was made for man. Her best interest, in all cases, to be sacrificed to his will. We ask of our rulers at this hour, no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation. We ask justice. We ask equality. We ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”
Read the full speech here.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “The American Dream” speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia July 4, 1965
“And as we struggle to realize the American dream, let us realize that we do not struggle alone. Even though there are the difficult days ahead, even though before the victory’s won, somebody else will have to get scarred up, somebody else will to have to go to jail, maybe someone will have to face physical death. For the victories won, some will be misunderstood, called bad names, be dismissed as dangerous rabble-rousers and agitators. Even in the midst of that, the struggle must go on. Knowing that the victory can be won because the odds of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice …
… And I am convinced that that is something in this universe, which justifies Carlyle in saying, “No lie can live forever.” There is something in the very court of the cosmos which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying “Truth, cursed to earth, will rise again.” There is something in this universe which justifies James Russell Lowell, in saying, “Truth, forever on the scaffold, wrong, forever on the throne.” Yet that scaffold sways the future. And so with this faith in the future, we will be able to adjourn the counsels of the staff rise from the fatigue of darkness, to the buoyancy of hope. And we will be able bring into being this new society and realize the American dream.”
Read the full speech here.
And as a bonus, 🔥 I leave you with the empowered words of our youth …
Amanda Gorman , U.S. presidential inauguration 2021“The Hill We Climb”
When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promised glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it