In Pursuit of Progress
A few days ago marked the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. Today we celebrate our 248th National Independence Day. It’s hard to say we haven’t made progress towards living up to the ideals of our founding fathers. But even acknowledging our progress illuminates how far we have to go. As community organizer Kali Akuno says, “we are trying to learn how to be democratic. We don’t know how to do that. I’ve never lived in a democratic society. I really don’t know what that looks like.” If we want to see a true democracy, we’ve got to pursue democratic ideals in our everyday lives. The reality is, in the words of Ruha Benjamin, “we change the world by changing it.”
Have you ever read the declaration of independence? As a history buff, here’s why I love it: because it points to exactly who and what were on the founding father’s minds at the time. It illuminates their grievances, while also revealing the limitations of their ability to dream a world beyond their lived experiences. Here’s a line that sticks out to me from the Declaration of independence:
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
What if we all remembered that our local, state, and federal governments derived their powers from us? What kind of change could we enact? Look at the efforts we’ve made to dramatically alter our own government in pursuit of progress. The first Civil Rights Act was passed in 1866 in the aftermath of the Civil War to affirm the thirteenth amendment granting citizenship to Black folks and ensuring equality under the law. It took us nearly 100 years after the Declaration was written to realize that people shouldn’t own people. It would take another 100 years and the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964 to actually implement the existing laws on the books. Another separate Voting Rights Act of 1965 brought more enforcement strength to the 1957 law. And yet we know, there’s more work to do.
In his speech at the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs, Dr. King remarked about our progress in 1963 (over 60 years ago):
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
The same problems exist today. Last year I took my family to Philadelphia and we visited Independence Hall where the declaration was signed. I wanted my daughters to see where this experiment began, at least in its written form. I wanted them to understand the limitations of our historical analysis while appreciating our progress. Finally, we continued on to DC where we would later visit the National Museum of African American History. I wanted them to see their place in this bigger picture.
If we want a better community, state, and country, I believe it’s on each of us to begin where we are to make it so. This isn’t a repudiation of macro-scale structural policy change, I’m a big believer in the both/and. As Ruha Benjamin writes in her book, Viral Justice, “how we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale. What we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system.” We’ve been in the process for nearly 250 years of growing into the democratic ideal that we set out to become. While this growth has happened in fits and starts, it’s up to us to continue to prove this American experiment worthwhile.
