Dear Ward 5 neighbors,
“This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny?“
Indeed, I do hope. These words, spoken by Frederick Douglass during his famous “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Speech on July 5, 1852, still ring true as we mark the nation’s 250th anniversary this weekend.
It is not lost on me that this significant milestone and long-anticipated anniversary falls at a time of great disappointment and national unrest. An unnecessary war has thrown our country into harm’s way and driven the cost of everyday essentials—from gas to groceries—through the roof. More than a quarter of DC children are now living in poverty. Our region is still recovering from the reckless discarding of thousands of federal employees—faithful public servants who believed in the promise of America. Neighbors live in fear amid the proliferation of masked, unidentified agents snatching loved ones off of bikes and out of their own homes. The Supreme Court continues to roll back hard-fought voting rights, asylum protections, and access to healthcare.
I do not say this to be grim, but to illuminate the meaning of James Baldwin’s famous words—”I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
Like Baldwin, I am not afraid to name what is wrong, knowing that my attention to injustice is born from a deep love of this country. And like Douglass, I hope that the high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to our destiny. This Fourth of July, I will celebrate our founding ideals while remaining clear-eyed about the hard work that remains ahead of us to more perfectly embody them.
