Hang together…

Two hundred and forty-four years ago, this week, our nation was born upon the precept that everyone of its citizens “were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Far too often as a people, we have failed to live up to that dream. From legal slavery to economy tyranny to institutional racism, the aspiration of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence has been denied to too many Americans.

Nonetheless, to revere that Revolutionary commitment to the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal” stands as no hypocrisy. Instead, it constitutes our sacred trust – a dream to which we must recommit ourselves every year at this time.

Until July 4, 1776, no nation in the history of humanity had ever inaugurated with universal commitment to human liberty. Independence movements had launched before, celebrating the chosen nature of a particular ethnicity and its right not to be subjugated. Never before, though, was an independence movement born upon a precept that all deserved “blessings of liberty.“

They were flawed men. Many at Philadelphia decried slavery, including the author of the Declaration, yet many owned slaves, including the author of the Declaration. Nevertheless, theirs proved a Revolutionary act. Their vision inspires to this day. In order to secure “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

People have died to defend that dream. People continue to die in that struggle for liberty. Therefore, this week, all Americans, regardless of race or circumstance, should honor how the men of Philadelphia changed the world.

Rising to their call, each generation, each one of us, must press forward in the struggle for true freedom and the rights of all human beings to live as they choose. “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

This article originally published in the June 29, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.