I love my country with a depth that has fostered a career spent teaching about its history and politics. I am a patriot who named her only child after the man whose words we celebrate on this 4th of July day.
But I am no “Love my country right or wrong” patriot. I am an “I love my country enough to right the wrongs” patriot. This year, a year determined to teach us some very important lessons, it seems appropriate to pause and think again abut the patriot I am.
I’ve taught it so much that I know the preamble to the Declaration of Independence by heart. I read it several times a year; I think about it often. I teach the Declaration in terms of that preamble and I never fail to be stirred by the claim that all men are created equal and endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think of the power of such a claim when it was made in 1776 and as we try to live by it now. I teach my students that every right Americans subsequently demanded to have recognized, be it the right to be free from slavery, to vote, to marry whomever we please, was recognized in those words and was there all along.
That’s not all that I teach because I know how often we fell short of that stirring claim; I know how often we still fall short of it. I teach my students about both of those truths. I teach Frederick Douglass’s words about the 4th of July. I teach them about the racism baked into our founding and built into our firmament.
Then I remind them that we must be patriots who seek a better nation for all of us. I remind them that all we need do is return to the words of the Declaration and let that truth guide our way.
