After cookouts, laughs, conversations, parades, playing lawn games, hiking, swimming, boating, and beer drinking—we’re back to reality today. On July 4th, before our annual Corn Hole Tournament, my husband read the second paragraph of The Declaration of Independence before the first bag was tossed.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
—The Declaration of Independence
As I walked toward the Cape Cod Bay this morning, I thought about what the 6th of July means to me and the words my husband read Sunday afternoon. All people are created equal…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Those five words…all people are created equal, although masterfully aspirational, sadly do not describe America—past or present.
“…democracy isn’t top down. “Each day, we’re reminded there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy, nothing guaranteed about our way of life,” he said. “We have to fight for it, defend it, earn it…. It’s up to all of us to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the right to equal justice under the law; the right to vote and have that vote counted; the right…. to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that our children and grandchildren will be safe on this planet for generations to come… the right to rise in the world as far as your God-given [talent] can take you, unlimited by barriers of privilege or power.”
Heather Cox Richardson/Letters from an American July 5th
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