The Declaration Still Demands Courage
- Sat, Jul 4 2026 at 12:05 PM
Mark M,
Happy Fourth of July!
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of American colonists signed a bold Declaration of Independence declaring that they and their fellow Americans were no longer the subjects of the tyrannical British king.
That declaration could have been short-lived. Making it real took years of hard fighting against the world’s most powerful empire.
But Americans don’t celebrate the defeat of the British forces at Yorktown in 1781, or the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, or even the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, as the country’s birthday.
We celebrate the assertion of self-determination signed on July 4, 1776. The radical declaration that all men (people) are created equal and share equally the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The equally radical declaration that government draws its legitimacy from the consent of the governed.
Those principles are worth celebrating, even though we as a country have often failed to live up to them.
It is undeniable that for most of our 250 years, the ability to participate in self-governance was denied to Black people, women, and others. Our country has sometimes sided with tyrants to squelch the aspirations of other oppressed people.
It is also undeniable that the principles of the Declaration inspired the people who have fought to change all that, who fought to abolish slavery and the brutality of the Jim Crow era. The principles in the Declaration inspired the African American civil rights movement and other movements for freedom and justice from around the world.
They also inspired People For’s founder Norman Lear. In 2000, Norman and his wife Lyn purchased a rare original printing of the Declaration of Independence. They sent it on a decade-long road trip to every state so that people of every faith and political persuasion could experience the feeling of reverence and awe at being in the presence of this document that was printed secretly on July 4, 1776 and carried on horseback to spread the news of independence. Now that’s patriotism.
It is a tragedy that President Donald Trump has hijacked the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence while he and his allies are working so hard to whitewash our history in favor of empty glorification of our “greatness.” It is even worse that he and his MAGA movement are so aggressively working to reverse progress on voting rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ equality, and equal opportunity.
Under better leadership, our 250th anniversary could have become a rare moment for Americans to reflect together on our founding promises, the ways we have failed to fulfill them, and also the ways that we have come together time and again to move the nation toward them.
We could have made this anniversary a celebration of the abolitionists, suffragists, and freedom riders, the advocates and average citizens who put their lives on the line, the millions and millions of Americans who have fought for freedom and justice at home and abroad.
I’ll be celebrating that American spirit on this Fourth of July. I’ll be celebrating the spirit of the people in Minneapolis who rallied to protect their neighbors from the violence of our current authoritarian regime. I’ll be celebrating all of the people and civic organizations who work – under great threat to themselves – to protect the people’s right to vote. I’ll be celebrating the spirit of the millions of people in every state who have turned out for joyful “No Kings” rallies in defiance of the corrupt would-be king and his court.
Those rallies directly invoke the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, whose authors declared, “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
Today, we are being led by unfit rulers who are corruptly abusing their power to make us less free.
There is no greater act of genuine patriotism than to resist them.
We are four months from elections that can help us reclaim our country.
Let us pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
We, too, can make history!
Svante Myrick
President
People For the American Way
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