A Weekend for All of Us

the folks I'm celebrating on July 4

Jul 04, 2024

It’s July 4, Independence Day in the United States.

Over the years I’ve noticed, on social media and at parades and other events, that this holiday often defaults to militaristic trappings, featuring appreciations of our service people in uniform, who “fought and died for our freedom.” It’s to be expected, I suppose, in a country whose national anthem features rockets glaring and bombs bursting*.

While I do appreciate the sacrifices of our folks in uniform—and their families—July 4 is for all Americans, and the fight for freedom, and for “liberty and justice for all,” occurs in a lot of different ways. My country and I have a perpetual lovers’ quarrel going, but this is my home: this big, unwieldy, flawed, lovely, troubled, polyglot nation. I am an American, and that’s both a privilege and a weighty responsibility. So with gratitude to our service members, here’s a random, very partial list of the kind of people I celebrate this weekend:

Walt Whitman.

Juliette Gordon Low.

Sojourner Truth.

Sarah Weddington.

Dolores Huerta.

Marsha P. Johnson.

Stephen Sondheim.

Shirley Chisholm.

Julia Child.

Sylvia Earle.

Abraham Lincoln.

Maya Angelou.

Harriet Tubman.

Frank Capra.

Muhammad Ali.

Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Nellie Bly.

Harvey Milk.

Mae Jemison.

Thomas Edison.

Colin Kaepernick.

César Chavez.

Mamie Till-Mobley.

Amelia Earhart.

John Lewis.

Viola Liuzzo.

Melinda Gates.

Woody Guthrie.

Thank you for reading The Blue Room with MaryAnn McKibben Dana. This post is public so feel free to share it.

As I said, our family is away this weekend, so I’ll sign off and turn it around to you: whom do you celebrate this weekend? (And for those Blue Room readers outside the United States: I’d love to hear answers from your own country!)