We Hold Which Truths to be Self-Evident?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Those words from the Declaration of Independence were written in 1776 by a team led by Thomas Jefferson. They marked a revolution in political history: the American colonies declared "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The American revolution was not just the overthrowing of a despotic king's power, but also the founding of a new form of government.

Though all men were declared equal in 1776, a terrible political compromise meant people of certain racial heritages were not considered full men. Thus they were denied the unalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness (and often of life, too).

Nearly ninety years later, that terrible compromise fell apart. And standing on a bloody battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Abraham Lincoln declared:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

Lincoln led the country through that awful test, and proved that not only could such a nation endure, but that it could endure even as it defined African Americans as full men. Slavery was abolished.

Yet still African Americans were unable to enjoy their full rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was another ninety years before the Supreme Court (in Brown v. Board of Education) declared segregation of public schools to be unconstitutional in a case argued by Thurgood Marshall.

And still discrimination and even segregation continued for years.

This month's election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the US marks, I hope, the beginning of the end of our heritage of racism in the US. Even most Americans with opposing political views are happy that this nation has voted to affirm at last that African Americans are created equal. This is cause for some pride and celebration, even though it took us over 230 years.

Which raises for me the following: Now that we have fully affirmed that our fellow black countrymen have full rights, what is the next frontier? Who among our neighbors are still suffering from discrimination? Who among us are unable to exercise their full rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? 

[GlobalGiving]

Comments

[problemchild]

Some had no say at all in this last election. The homeless, without a verifiable address, for one. They couldn't vote most places..A judge in Ohio intervened in one test case this year.

And felons maybe. Do you know the US is one of very few countries that revokes the right to vote for felons (12 states or so, even after they've done their time). And we have the most incarcerated population in the whole world, 1 in a 100, to support our free market prison system!

I read a post from a guy who was drunk at a party with underage girls when he was 17..that was a felony. He has trouble finding a job too.

There's a lot of stuff we don't want to know about our country, for one thing, we've already had 123 AfricanAmericans to Congress....I'm very happy that we can move on with Obama.

[gd h]

Glad somebody got to "gay people" before I did. My brother and his partner got married in California about a couple of months ago. Now California voters (and initiative laws, apparently) see fit to deprive him of the rights he used to have. What's up with that? Never happened before. It would be like removing the rights of women to vote. Or blacks. How would that work? Maybe we should all stick up for them, huh?

[thegaygardener]

"Who among our neighbors are still suffering from discrimination? Who among us are unable to exercise their full rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? "

Gay People! On that very day 2 weeks ago when we "fully affirmed that our fellow black countrymen have full rights" a slim majority in the state of California, emboldened by the Mormon Church, voted to "ELIMINATE the right of same gender couples to marry" That is a direct quote from the text of Proposition 8.
Gays have long been discriminated against & the violence aimed towards them (us) increases every day around the globe. But apparently I CHOSE to be this way. At birth or some time in my youth I inadvertently checked Box "b" under the "Lifestyle" section; so I had better re-choose.

As a sign I saw at a rally read: "Gay is the new Black!"

[davidly]

Third parties.