Let Freedom Ring

For the last ten years or so, I’ve made it a tradition to read the Declaration of Independence on July 4. I do the same with MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the holiday honoring him. To me, it’sa good way to bypass the commercial aspects of both and get to the gist of why these holidays should matter to us as Americans. 

Interestingly, both are easy, short reads, clocking in at around 1,500 words.  The Declaration is just under, King’s speech just over, both about twice as long as this column. Each demonstrates the lost artof clarity andbrevity over verbosity when it comes to making an important point to citizens.    

The good old days, I suppose. 

When it comes to the Declaration, it’s my favorite of the founding documents. It’s what kicked off this whole experiment in democracy in the first place and set the tone for all that would follow. 

Reading it today, it’s remarkable how truly revolutionary it was, a blistering criticism aimed at a king flexing his power over a birthing country that had had enough.   

It’s equally stark how personal it is in calling out King George III and his abuse of power.    

About a third of the way in, it reads:  

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. 

Facts and candor. How quaint, and two examples of other lost arts. 

It then goes into nearly thirty specific examples of the ways the king was harming our citizens and thwarting the birth of our great nation, many of them leading with the word “he,” grounding this amazing document in the reality of calling a despot a despot.   

What did their complaints include? Here’s a few: 

Keeping standing armies on our streets without our consent and creating a military independent of civilian oversight. 

Refusing to assent to laws, including the laws for naturalization of foreigners. 

Creating new offices to harass “our people.” 

Cutting off trade with other parts of the world. 

Fomenting domestic insurrection by “Savages.” 

Transporting large armies to complete “works of death, desolation and tyranny... totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.” 

The list goes on.   

I was born in one of the original 13 colonies (New Jersey), grew up in two others (North Carolina and Virginia), and spent much of my adult life in a fourth (Georgia). As a result, our country’s history was always woven into my life, from our foundingto the Civil War to the civil rights movement.   

One of my fondest memories growing up was the excitement of our bicentennial. I was 10 in 1976 when the Freedom Train came through Virginia, and I was fortunate to visit it with my parents on its stop in Norfolk.   

I honestly don’t remember much of what was on display. I just remember the feeling of being part of something important, something historic and patriotic.   

I was still a Cub Scout then, on the cusp of transitioning to the Boy Scouts on my trek to eventually attain the rank of Eagle Scout, adefinitional path for me in terms of solidifying my lifelong values. I absolutely loved our country, our history, and the promise of its future.   

I still do. 

I don’t ascribe to the notion that our best days are behind us as a country, and neither did King in his speech, despite the headwinds his movement was facing.   

And like that train celebrating our bicentennial, King’s “Dream” speech mirrored the concept our founders articulated in the Declaration, specifically: freedom and unity. 

King’s soaring speech pulls in threads from the Declaration, the Constitution and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and culminates with the famous closing paragraph: 

“When we allow freedom to ring – when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, we are free at last.’ 

That’s the definition of freedom I embrace. 

Happy birthday, America.