Americans celebrate freedom on July 4th
Around the world and across generations a familiar scene has played out many millions of times, different in the details, yet identical in the main. Families gathered around a table for a final meal in the only home they had known. Young men and women stared at the ceiling, alone, awake, nervous, waiting for the morning when they would leave all that they knew. In the morning, they would leave for America. They are us, and we are them, connected inexorably and infinitely. We are Americans.
The great civil rights activist and legendary Georgia Congressman John Lewis understood better than most the chasm of hypocrisy that existed between America’s splendid ideals and apartheid reality. He absorbed them blow by blow as he peacefully marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. When the police clubs crashed into his skull, it broke, but his spirit did not. Instead, his love, patriotism and courage breathed new life into the American revolution. His indomitable moral courage was amplified by a talent for forgiveness and a servant’s heart. His life left profound lessons from his grace and wisdom. Perhaps his simple observation about our divisions, difficulties and challenges is worth remembering:
“We may have come here on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.”
Indeed we are.
Today, we celebrate an anniversary of a historical event that forever changed the world. In fact, it marks the beginning of a new epoch of human civilization. We celebrate a Declaration of Independence, and the courage of the men who signed it. We celebrate their vision, genius and sacrifices. We celebrate a gift and an inheritance that have endured and expanded through sacrifices, suffering, war, depression and suffocating oppression. Today, we celebrate freedom.
Today, we celebrate the 248th anniversary of the independence of the United States of America. Let freedom ring.
Freedom does not eliminate suffering, poverty, discrimination, unfairness, cruelty or hardship, but it makes it possible to fix what is broken and imagine new possibilities. The freedoms to think, believe, love, create, sing, write, dissent, protest, imagine, dream and worship are elemental to human happiness, dignity and spirit.
All men are created equal.
These are transcendent and glorious words. They are our creed, and they belong to all of us today. Perhaps most importantly, they belong to the generations of unborn Americans who will remember our difficult era with the same indifference we show the challenges and difficulties of our ancestors.
The greatest republic in human history is approaching its 250th anniversary.
When the fireworks commence tonight, as President John Adams predicted they would 248 years ago, they will fall over a nation of 334 million free men and women who are comprised from every nation on Earth. They worship as they choose, and pursue happiness in their own way. There will be no knock at the door tonight by the secret police in America. The state will not put its jackboot on the neck of a single citizen and informants won’t make lists of who is going to church. We are free.
The aspiration towards freedom is universal and its sustainment is hard. In the end, today is a celebration of freedom that requires a recommitment by each citizen to its preservation and expansion. So long as there are humans on Earth there will be some who seek to oppress and author the lives of others. There will be regimes that seek to control every aspect of a human being’s life and purpose.
Freedom is precious and rare. Americans should always remember that. With quiet humility, they must understand that we are trustees of an inheritance that we are obligated to hand down. Look around tonight and remember, you can’t love your country if you hate half of the people in it simply because they disagree with you. That is what being an American is all about.
Defiance and dissent are in our DNA. Freedom is our birthright, obligation and destiny.
Today, we sing “Happy Birthday, America.”
Today is a day that I can celebrate and hope that America is a work in progress. In the past day or so I have had my hope reinvigorated by words from American heroes less often elevated but to hear their words and hear of their fight I am inspired despite the the characters who bring us down. Yesterday alone I heard Yusef Salaam, exonerated member of the Central Park Five who was castigated by a former president of his own country who called for his death.
He now is a candidate for Harlem City Council and presumed to be elected. And Myrlie Evers, widow of slain civil rights activist, who spoke with a kind heart of an America her young husband had died for.
The words of these and many others will drive me to do my part in fighting for American independence.
Steve, you are right. America’s original sin was slavery and oppression of the indigenous .. the slave auction block in towns across the South is one proof. Rank intolerance and the KKK followed the emancipation proclamation, as we denied the freedoms to those once enslaved. Their freedom was denied by their color. We are doing this again. Republicans would effectively deny voting to non-white Americans and deny the right to choose to women by state laws forcing them to deliver the unwanted child, a form of discrimination and slavery. The party of intolerance has emerged from the party of Abraham Lincoln. Intolerance is rising, violence is rising. The Tower of Babel is the metaphor. Tribal behavior opposes tolerance. We must find the way to love our neighbors and treasure our differences, not fear them. Differences are the spice of life. They flavor sameness.