This is a very different 4th of July.
We are all adjusting to safe distancing and sanitizing protocols as we weather the COVID-19 epidemic.
No lazy day at the beach. No picnic with freinds and family. No organized fireworks displays. For the first time in a very long time, I won't be spending July 4th sharing food and fun with my neighbors in one of our backyards. We'll do it from a distance, but intend to keep the tradition alive for this year, as well. Just from sidewalks and front yards.
We do, however, have plenty of time to consider our country and the vision of those 56 patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence asserting that people have rights that cannot be taken away, the progress we've made and the progress we need to make so everyone shares the promise and prosperity of America equally.
Today people across the US and the world are making their voices heard as they call for equal justice, fair treatment of all human beings and the opportunity to build the lives they choose sfely while having access to the tools to do exactly that.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident... "
Revolutionary words in 1776.
Revolutionary words today.
"Raise a glass to freedom-something that can never be taken away," Alexander Hamilton (in the play, anyway).
With the nation on the brink of civil war, Abraham Lincon called on Americans to remember, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
From his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln asked, "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
These quotes are historic, the idea was blatantly stolen from the LA Times, but here are some things great thinkers and orators have said on the occasion of our Independence Day:
“It becomes us, on whom the defence of our country will ere long devolve, this day, most seriously to reflect on the duties incumbent upon us. Our ancestors bravely snatched expiring liberty from the grasp of Britain, whose touch is poison... Shall we, their descendants, now basely disgrace our lineage, and pusillanimously disclaim the legacy bequeathed to us? Shall we pronounce the sad valediction to freedom, and immolate liberty on the altars our fathers have raised to her?” - Daniel Webster (at age 18 as a sophomore at Dartmouth College), July 4, 1800.
"The true greatness of nations is in those qualities which constitute the greatness of the individual. It is not to be found in extent of territory, nor in vastness of population, nor in wealth; not in fortifications, or armies, or navies; not in the phosphorescent glare of fields of battle; not in Golgothas, though covered by monuments that kiss the clouds; for all these are the creatures and representatives of those qualities of our nature..." Charles Sumner, July 4, 1845.
“Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us?" Frederick Douglas, July 5, 1852.
“Our faith is firm and unwavering in the broad principles of human rights proclaimed in 1776, not only as abstract truths, but as the corner stones 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 disfranchisement.” Susan B. Anthony, July 4, 1876
“Let us labor continually to keep the advance in civilization as it becomes us to do after the struggles of the past, so that the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which we have honorably secured, may be firmly entailed upon the ever enlarging generations of mankind.” Charles Francis Adams, July 4, 1876.
" I tell the American people solemnly that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, July 4, 1941.
“Our idealism, [a fundamental] element of the American character, is being severely tested. Now, only time will tell whether this element of the American character will be true to its historic tradition.” John F. Kennedy, July 4, 1946.
"For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globe—and it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. There are those struggling to eke out a bare existence in a barren land who have never heard of free enterprise, but who cherish the idea of independence. There are those who are grappling with overpowering problems of illiteracy and ill-health and who are ill-equipped to hold free elections. But they are determined to hold fast to their national independence." JFK, July 4, 1962
"...America is essentially a dream. It is a dream of a land where men of all races, of all nationalities, and of all creeds, can live together as brothers. The substance of the dream is expressed in these sublime words, “We hold these truths to be self- evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., July 4, 1965.
Enjoy our Independence Day. Be safe, be well and be happy.