I am grateful for all the ordinary people who across centuries stood up and organized to make this country better. Now it is our turn; it is up to us.
We’re celebrating 250 years since the founding of the United States of America. Yes, celebrating, and I hope you did, too.
I know this moment brings up so many conflicting emotions. On the one hand, this country is our home. Some of us have no other place to call home. Some of us have chosen to make this our home, and some of us are still grappling with the centuries of injustice that brought us here.
Whatever this landmark celebration means to you, I hope you take time to reflect, as I have, on what brought us here, and find ways to take lessons from those who found reasons to fight to build a better future in this country, across the many injustices that wound our nation’s journey. In doing so, these courageous women and men made a way for us to be here today.
Last week, as we awaited the Supreme Court’s decision on Birthright Citizenship, I found myself reflecting on this journey. First, I am grateful for all the ordinary people who across the centuries stood up and organized to make this country better.
Abolitionists, Suffragists, Labor and Civil Rights leaders all organized tirelessly to expand our democracy, and even gave their lives to ensure the enactment of amendments to the Constitution to recognize the rights of all individuals regardless of their creed, skin color or economic status. They inspire me. What we’re experiencing today is a backlash to all that they won.
When the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776, there were only white men in the room. No women, and no people of color. Here are a few highlights of the next 250 years:
The First Century: From 1776 through the Civil War, we endured the violent, institutional enslavement of black people in order to build this country and its economy, with the genocide of millions of indigenous people and the displacement of millions of Mexicans to take their land and make room for this country’s expansion. This was a time when people who were being oppressed, displaced and enslaved, sacrificed their lives to gain the basic right to exist, to be considered human and worthy of what the Declaration of Independence promised to everyone in this country: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Second Century: With Emancipation and the passage of the 14th Amendment, they finally won! And for the first time in this country, the votes of all men - but only men - were to be legally counted. Then in 1920, after a century of organizing, with the 19th Amendment, women finally got the right to vote. But what followed was a century of violent backlash to take these rights away. A set of laws were enacted in order to deny what had been won. During the Jim Crow era, Black people were persecuted, murdered and denied the right to vote. It took almost another hundred years to win again.
The Third Century: We are now 61 years into our Third Century as a nation, which began with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. This secured sweeping federal legislation to end race-based discrimination and voter suppression, dismantling the Jim Crow era, and gave us many of the rights we all enjoy today. Yet this, too, sparked a violent backlash, which is what we are experiencing now.
This moment in history, with all its turbulence, violence and government overreach we are experiencing is what it feels like to live in the backlash. The effort to deny Birthright Citizenship is part of that backlash, but that is just one part of what the enemies of democracy want to take away from us. They want to turn back the clock at least a hundred years, to the era of Jim Crow and before women had the right to vote.
That’s why they are taking away our right to vote, our access to healthcare, to education, to fairness, to racial equality and gender equality. And as in the era of Jim Crow, they are prepared to use violence. Some of us, our brothers, sisters, children and neighbors, are being kidnapped by masked men, while others are being intimidated or shot for peacefully protesting.
The truth is, there has always been a powerful minority in this country that rejects the vision of democracy for everyone. And yet, we hold on to the hope that we can achieve “a more perfect union”: a place with rights and freedom for all. Why should we believe this, when our history as a nation is filled with so many efforts to deny these rights?
The answer is in our Constitution, which opens with these words: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice.”
These words were written by Gouverneur Morris, who was one of the few at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 who demanded slavery should end with the founding of the new nation. While slaveholders prevailed in the first draft of the Constitution, Morris’s inclusive vision was vindicated in 1868, when the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to all persons born here. This is the inclusive vision which the Supreme Court just affirmed, when it refused President Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.
Like our ancestors, we are once again fighting for our very humanity. We are fighting for our families and neighborhoods and communities, all those we love and care about. We are fighting for our dignity, for decency, for fairness, for what is sacred. That’s what it means to be a true American, to believe that this country can be better when we embrace each other and our differences.
This is the total opposite of what the enemies of democracy want. They seek to rule by force, fear and division. They need us to turn off our empathy and compassion, to turn on each other and turn away when we see others being harmed.
Yet we will not turn away when we see injustice, or from the humanity we share. This is the greatest threat to authoritarianism: the fact that those who have been harmed the most still hold on to joy and celebration. We refuse to let anyone deny our humanity.
We still care for each other, and for this place we call home, even when it wants to shut us out and deny our rights. Our love and care for this country and for each other is a constant reminder that what it means to be truly human is to care and to be in connection and relationship to one another.
Between now and November, Trump and his allies will do all they can to undermine our voice and our votes. That’s why at People’s Action, we’re doing all we can to defend our elections, and make sure every vote is counted to help defend our democracy, and one another, while we still can. Please join us in this effort.
They may be powerful, but they don’t have what we have: our love for one another. We have the power of solidarity, of people who stand together no matter what. That’s why I believe that even in these troubled times, We the People - organized people, who love each other - will prevail.
