Who’s on your Mount Rushmore?

Happy 4th of July. As I think about Mount Rushmore today, it represents both controversy and inspiration to me. The monument is a symbol of broken treaties and subjugation; it is also a symbol of how big America thinks, and how impactful our country has been on humanity. The four Presidents depicted on the mountain belie the diversity of our country’s past, present, and future. They also each helped to drive revolutionary change for the United States and for the world.

Washington and Jefferson helped to establish a new form of representative government which has shaped the modern world. Lincoln legally established that when we say “All men are created equal”, we mean it. And Roosevelt’s trust busting resulted in a revolutionary re-balancing of the power dynamics between capital and labor.

The United States of America is rooted in revolutionary ideals. At our best, we continue to represent and to manifest those ideals. They are ideals are so deeply embedded in our culture that they echo in our heads without us even thinking about them:

• Equality as a foundational component of civilization. (“We hold these truths to be self evident…”)
• The ability to achieve unity from diversity. (“E Pluribus Unum”)
• Service as a critical component of our character. (“Ask not what your country can do for you…”)
• The ability to achieve a better life. (“I have a dream…”)
• Universal entitlement to freedom and justice. (“…with liberty and justice for all.”)

This Independence Day, I wanted to take a little time to reflect about why I love America, despite our many flaws. What makes me proud to be American is our historical ability to translate revolutionary ideals into action and, ultimately, revolutionary progress.

This is a country that was born out of a fundamental opposition to subjugation. And, our revolution against Great Britain was just the first of our revolutions against subjugation of many different types. Like our founding fathers, the heroes of our society’s various cultural revolutions have hammered away at the foundations of subjugation until those foundations shattered.

So I got to thinking, what would Mount Rushmore look like if it represented the full spectrum of our country’s people and our greatest social accomplishments? Below are a collection of faces who represent to me our most cherished values and ideals and who look much more like the America we live in than the current stone monument in South Dakota.

Whatever you feel about the current state of our nation, it is worth remembering this July 4th that our country has had a hand in some of the most significant social progress in the history of humanity. And — that our Constitution has a proven track record of facilitating this progress. That’s why I love my country, despite its many tragic flaws and grievous historical errors.

While Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal”, and Lincoln ensured that legal right, it took many other leaders to make progress toward the true ideal that “all people are created equal”. In America, we recognize and lionize hard work and character. But most of all, we recognize results. Without exception, the leaders below took massive responsibility on their own shoulders to produce revolutionary progress for society, and every one of them contributed mightily to the social progress from which we all benefit today.

To me, America is about the promise of something better, for all of us. That better future isn’t guaranteed, but the faces below are evidence that with hard work, a better future is something that our system can reliably facilitate. And that’s the type of symbol I can get behind.

Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth

Would women have the right to vote without stalwart suffragette leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth? Would women today have the opportunity for greater representation without that vote? Neither woman lived to see the Constitutional Amendment which enshrined the rights that they worked so hard to ensure, but the impact of their work is undeniable. Look at our country’s progress on female representation in government since the 19th Amendment was finally ratified.

Frederick Douglass — Like Truth, Douglass was born into slavery and rose to become one of the most influential abolitionists and champions of women’s rights in his time. His legacy as an activist, orator, writer and statesman is enormous. His influence on President Lincoln is well documented, and his reflections on Independence Day are especially timely and worth reviewing.

Martin Luther King Jr. — Would the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965 been signed without the massive social movement that King helped to spearhead? Would representation by people of color in our government have made progress without this legislation? In 1960, nearly every single member of Congress was white. Now, that benchmark has fallen to under 80%, and the trend toward proportional representation is accelerating.

The accomplishments of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta are tightly interwoven. Their fight for the rights of migrant farm workers sits at the core of America’s progress toward greater equity and representation for immigrants and Hispanic Americans in general. In a country where the Hispanic American population is expected to double proportionally between the start of this century and its midpoint, the momentum of social progress that these two generated for LatinX Americans may be one of the most impactful accomplishments of the last century.

Patsy Mink was the first woman of color to be elected to the US Congress. More importantly, she was a driving force behind and co-author of Title IX, which brought academic and athletic equity to American educational institutions. This legislation (which now bears her name) ushered in a revolution in the way that we as a people think about sports in particular, which is one of the most powerful symbols, leverage points, and reflections of American society. Would we have ever seen that famous photograph of Brandi Chastain — and all that it represented about the changing nature of women’s roles in sports and society — without Patsy Mink’s revolutionary work?

Sacagawea was a pioneer on multiple levels. She helped to open up the American West, a movement which in many ways defined the 19th and 20th centuries in our country. She also helped to demonstrate the possibility of peaceful exploration and coexistence between people of different backgrounds. In America’s painful and shameful national history of relations with Native Americans, her story is a rare example of positive collaboration and hope.

Eleanor Roosevelt — A steadfast supporter of civil rights as a partner in her husband’s political career, after FDR’s death Roosevelt became “First Lady to the World”. As a UN Delegate she was the driving force behind the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a seminal document created with no less of an ambition than, in her own words, “to become the international Magna Carta of all.” Since its adoption, the document has influenced local, national, and international constitutions, treaties and legislation across the globe. The results have been momentous.

Edie Windsor — her long career of activism culminated in the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to nullify the federal legislation which restricted the rights of American citizens to marry each other without regard for their gender or sexual identity.

Well, I am no historian, but I am glad that this day has spurred me to learn a little more history, and I hope it inspires you to do the same. Who’s on your Mount Rushmore?

Whatever your answer, happy 4th of July. Here’s to our progress — as a people, as a nation, and as a human race.