The nation’s 250th birthday brings parades, tacos and a debate over the American story
America’s 250th birthday is much more than a party. As fireworks light up skies from Rhode Island to Oregon, the milestone has reopened one of the country’s oldest debates. What is the story of America, and what should the nation become? One version presents the country as a project of liberty and opportunity. Another sees that project contradicted by slavery and exclusion. Across the country this July 4, Americans are answering the question in their own ways, and the answers are as diverse as the nation itself.
The search for a narrative all of America can share
Writer Erec Smith argues the semiquincentennial is a chance to reshape the story the nation tells about itself, one that acknowledges failures while celebrating achievements. A national narrative, he explains, is the overarching story a society uses to establish pride and meaning, and trouble arises when clashing narratives occupy the same space.
Smith points to tools for building a better one. Activist Jonathan Smucker breaks political narratives into ten questions covering who counts as we, who plays protagonist and antagonist, and what emotions and symbols carry the story. Rhetorician Walter Fisher adds that a narrative only takes hold if it is coherent and if it resonates with people’s values and experiences. Philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein suggests the deepest requirement is mattering, the human longing to know we objectively count.
Rather than tearing the old story down, Smith leans on William James, who observed that new ideas are additions to an existing house rather than demolitions. The renovated American story would keep the taste of the original creed, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, while expanding who may claim those ideals. Less a new story, he concludes, than the next chapter of one now 250 years old.
How the country is celebrating
In Cuba City, Wisconsin, one of at least two towns calling itself the City of Presidents, red, white and blue shields honoring every president line the Main Street light poles, a tradition born during the 1976 bicentennial. Longtime organizer Donna Rogers says the town is pulling out all the stops with a parade and a mac and cheese festival, cheerfully admitting she googled the claim that the dish was a founding father favorite.
Bristol, Rhode Island, home to the nation’s oldest Independence Day celebration, marks the 250th with its 241st birthday bash, complete with 34 floats, a golf tournament, a beauty pageant and a gala ball organized by more than 100 volunteers. Souvenir seller Heidi Vermilyea, patriotic down to her pedicure, says politics can run left, right or moderate, but patriotism is simply loving your community and working to make it better.
In Milwaukee, Gissell Vera will celebrate with a carne asada cookout instead of hot dogs. The daughter of immigrants from Veracruz, she says she once felt caught between countries, neither from here nor there, but now proudly claims both. In Atlanta, ninth grader Ella Hummel advanced to the National Civics Bee finals while her grandmother watched, hopeful that a generation enjoying civics together might change the country a little.
Wrestling with the harder truths
Not every reflection is celebratory. Houston county commissioner Rodney Ellis, 43 years into public office, describes his patriotism as guarded. He notes tremendous progress since the bicentennial, when Congress had 18 Black representatives compared with 67 today, but worries about how quickly hard won gains can roll back. Progress in America, he says, often means two steps forward and ten back, but you never give up.
Pulitzer Prize winning writer Mitchell S. Jackson treasures childhood memories of red, white and blue outfits, yet says learning the country’s history of slavery complicated his relationship with it, especially after losing his right to vote before ever casting a ballot. To him, the number 250 rings false, since true freedom traces back only 160 years to the 14th Amendment or 62 to the Civil Rights Act. Loving America, he argues, means telling the truth about it.
Historian Megan Kate Nelson used the anniversary to challenge the frontier myth in her new book The Westerners, profiling pioneers who never fit the covered wagon narrative, from Polly Bemis, trafficked from China to the Idaho frontier, to Santa Fe saloon owner María Gertrudis Barceló, along with a fuller portrait of Sacagawea. Elevating those stories, she says, breaks the idea that there is only one kind of American greatness.
Taken together, the celebrations and the criticisms point toward the same place. A story of America that expands who may claim its ideals, insists everyone matters and keeps a hopeful eye on the future. That may be the truest way to blow out 250 candles.
SOURCES: npr, CATO INSTITUTE