A Weekend for All of Us

the folks I'm celebrating on July 4

Image by Spike Summers from Pixabay

Today’s decision destroyed the principle on which this nation was founded,
that all people in the United States of America should be equal before the law.
The name of the case is “Donald J. Trump v. United States.” 

—Heather Cox Richardson, not known for hyperbole

What a week it’s been.

I’m actually away for a few days, for some much-needed R&R with my family, but I pre-scheduled this post to share with you today—a rare Blue Room not on Friday. It seems even more salient this morning than when I put it together last week.

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.

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!)

~

*Why oh why can’t our national anthem be America the Beautiful? Though this rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner never ceases to amaze me. (Hot take: this one’s even more poignant than Whitney’s… especially given what had happened on this site just two weeks prior.)

Link Love

An old old link: a couple decades ago, the Washington Post invited a variety of people to revise or rewrite the Pledge of Allegiance. Enjoy.