The Story of our Nation

 I know about stories.  Stories have dynamic characters, conflict and villains, whether extrinsic or intrinsic.  A good story shows something.  A good story is about something.
   For too many years I thought the stories of the civil rights movement were an interesting side plot in the story of our nation.  It wasn't until I marched along the national mall and placed my feet into the foot prints of Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln memorial that I realized that the civil rights movement is not an interesting side-story.  The civil rights movement is THE story.  MY story.  The story of the United States of America is about the pursuit of the definition of freedom.
 

   I remember traveling to Boston in 1999.  I walked the Freedom Trail, taking pictures of plaques on the sidewalk and ducking under low door posts to catch a glimpse at where our story started.  Chills ran down my spine as I visited the site of the Boston Tea party, while staring down into the docks filled with jelly fish, where crates had been passionately cast into the sea.  We don't want your stupid tea.  We just want freedom!
    Close to twenty years later, March 2016, I passed through the tight security at the National Archives in D.C. into the same dimly lit room I'd seen in American Treasure.  There, fading before my very eyes I saw it.  "We hold these truths to be self evident.  That all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.  The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

  A story is a character who wants something so badly that they'd give up anything to get it.  In the year 1776 a group of 56 brave men took and pen and offered up their lives in exchange for the chance at freedom.  Give us liberty or give us death.  The birth of the story of freedom.  But what did freedom mean unless it was for everyone?  Could everyone have freedom?
    I'd noticed those questions woven in everywhere on our trip to D.C. last March.  It wasn't confined to a museum about African American History or a shrine to Martin Luther King Jr.  It was written into the most ancient documents, engraved on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial, mirrored into the reflecting pool, and flying over us in Marine One.
    Our forefathers made freedom one of our most sacred values and themes.  And then the civil war introduced the dissonance into the story as we realized we weren't sure what freedom really meant. It poked holes in our philosophies and turned a light on our hypocrisy. Who's freedom actually mattered?  The abolition of slavery began one of the most important scenes of our history.

   I think that's one of the reasons why I have always loved Lincoln so much.  He seemed like the King David character in this epic drama.  The passionate, poetic, supremely important leader, weighed down by the gravity of his role.  Walking through the museum in the basement of Ford theater, I saw evidence everywhere.  His realization that freedom wasn't freedom unless it benefited everyone.  It wasn't a side note, like some sign posted saying, "By the way, Lincoln also happened to think slaves should be freed."  No, it was a conviction he came by slowly but once held he was willing to wager everything on it. He firmly stood on his belief that "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."
   We walked from the Ford theater across the street and up the steps into the tiny room where Lincoln breathed his last.  His own words hang heavy and foreboding.
I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the Declaration of Independence that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.

  In the years that followed Lincoln's assassination we continued this misinterpretation of our favorite word, freedom.  Native Americans forced from their rightful homes, Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps, military officials blocking students from the entrance of a school.
   Like a time capsule, D.C. continued telling me the story.

  Walking through the Library of Congress I read document after document, defining and redefining freedom and even a letter from a black mother wanting the best for her children too asking "But why?"  Standing before the White House I remember the tears of joy I witnessed streaming down faces watching the President of the United States sworn in eight years ago.  Generations and generations of "No you can't" finally melting a little.  I walked along the reflecting pool of the National Mall and felt the ghosts of so many marchers, holding signs and singing "We shall overcome."  I stood with Lincoln's giant likeness staring over my shoulder with me towards the Washington Monument with "I have a dream" echoing in my ears.  What is freedom?  Who is it for?

   I don't think we've totally figured it out.  We're not living in the best part of the story yet.  Some conversations still can't happen around dinner tables without a bottle of Pepto.  New-old tensions pop up on our television and our newsfeed daily.  Are some people over targeted, disproportionately shot, imprisoned and questioned?  Do we lock our doors and roll up our windows more often in certain neighborhoods?  What's our attitude towards immigrants?  We're still defining freedom and who it belongs to.
   But I trust the good in us.  I trust that so many of us ultimately want what's right and we all have to wrestle with the how.  I trust the writer.  He never leaves a story unfinished.  I'm not satisfied with where we are right now.  But I'm hopeful that we're capable of a beautiful ending.