What We Actually Celebrate on July 4th (and What Trump Can't Take Away)
Edwin Eisendrath
Here’s what makes America exceptional: While others might fall to a would-be dictator who gains control of their government, we will not. What we celebrate on July Fourth is not the declaration that all are created equal, but the years of struggle since then that taught us to believe it.
The long struggle for freedom and equality in America has many heroes. Back in 1921, poor white miners in West Virginia’s Logan County protested for safer working conditions and livable wages. The local government promptly jailed their police chief whose crime was sympathy for the workers. Ten thousand miners then marched towards the jail. President Warren Harding sent armed federal troops to stop them. In the battle that followed, 16 miners were killed many others were wounded. The strikers were forced to give up their weapons and go home. And yet … their battle inspired a movement that eventually prevailed.
Back in the 1780s, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, and implored him not to forget the ladies as he joined efforts to draft our constitution. It would take another century-and-a-half and the sustained efforts of suffragettes before women would be allowed to vote.
But of all our struggles, the long, painful fight for freedom and equality for Black Americans is the one that most explains the American character, that speaks to the best in us, and every day reminds us of what we yet may aspire to be.
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