DC Reflections

Standing in awe -- and uncertainty -- in revolutionary Boston

BOSTON -- Studying the history of the American Revolution sometimes feels more like mud wrestling than an intellectual pursuit. Even after all the years, libraries, documents and road trips, I just can't quite get my arms around it and pin it down. I don't know why I'm surprised that my life-long dream of coming to Bean town is proving to be yet another couple of rounds in the pit.

My day started with awe.

I hit The Freedom Trail this morning, notebook and cameras in hand -- my mind spinning in anticipation of seeing sights I have known only as words and photographs for so long. "Captain John Hodgkins" led me along a guided tour that left me hanging on his every word. Every time he pointed and drew a deep breath, I bounded in that direction. Dressed in colonial attire of a gentleman, he told us about the history of the founding of this city and then bellowed out some of the highlights of the revolution that began here.

I bowed my head at the Granary Burying Ground and paid respects to James Otis, one of the not-as-well-remembered heroes of what became the freedom movement. He was the lawyer who argued against the writs of assistance for four hours, imploring that the British Crown not be allowed to enter anyone's house with a flimsy document and confiscate anything they find. His effort fell on deaf ears, but John Adams said he thought the Revolution started on that day. I gave just as much reverence to the likes of Paul Revere and to what modern history still records as victims of the Boston Massacre.

That's where it gets muddy.

The truth is that the Americans antagonized the British troops that fateful day. In the freezing cold winter, they hurled oyster shells and everything else they could find at the soldiers. Tension was still running high over the shooting of a boy by a lobster back a week earlier. We didn't have time to get into this kind of detail on the tour but I've read enough accounts of the events of that event to understand how the soldiers could have lost their composure. That didn't make firing on the colonists right but I have to at least acknowledge their mobbish behavior.

I'm still not sure what to make of everything that unfolded that day (March 5, 1770), but I am adamant that the site of those deaths should be better heralded than it is now. The spot where five people died and that ignited revolutionary fervor is now marked but by street bricks on a tiny traffic island outside the Old State House. People step all over it crossing the street and many clueless passersby probably don't even know what the spot is. I didn't even see a sign. I suspect that the everyday tourist in the group would've passed right over it without knowing what it was were it not for our captain.

I just don't quite get how a place that should be much more hallowed ground became something that people simply stomp all over. I realize that in 2009 it would be nearly impossible to fix the problem -- there's no room to re-route the roads.

Still. Couldn't something have been done earlier?

I returned to awe on my next few stops.

At Faneuil Hall, I sat there quietly imagining all the debates and community meetings that took place more than two centuries ago. Then I hopped on the T and took the train out to Quincy to visit the homes of my very favorite Founding Father, Mr. Adams. He is to me the most accessible of the bunch. The most human. The most open and expressive with his emotions and his thoughts. I can relate to his joy's and wallow in his pains. I can feel his ego bruisings. I can identify with his shortcomings: He hid them not.

I toured his birth home, walked next door to the home he later occupied with Abigail, the great love of his life. Every man and woman should be so lucky as to have a bond like what they shared.

I moved on to the home, "Peace field" where John and Abigail spent the rest of their lives. Its' where they listened in horror as surgeons cut into their daughter's breasts with a saw trying to remove a tumor. It's where John wrote and read so much of famous correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, a man with whom his relationship rode a roller coaster over their decades of friendship and service to this nation. Some of the words they exchanged in their final years are the most touching to me and I've now stood in each of the very rooms where they read and wrote the other -- and, of course, where both died within hours of each other on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

I did not realize John Adams died in his study. The National Park Service tour guide explained that once his wife died, the old president could bear no more nights in their bedroom.

I thought I was going to end Monday's history exploration in the high note of the good company of John and Abigail. Both of them are heroes of mine, by the way, and I have spent an extraordinary amount of time in their graces. I've held original letters he wrote from France and I've even touched an alleged lock of her hair. (History groupies find access to these kinds of experiences.)

A ride back to Boston led me to a mudslide.

I entered the Boston Public Library at Copley Square and camped out in the beautiful reading room with a stack of books on the Revolution after marveling at the architecture of the building. The most compelling read was "Black Courage 1775-1783: Documentation of Black Participation in the Revolutionary War," by Robert Ewell Greene in 1984.

At the risk of sounding like the kind of politically correct blowhard I disdain, it is absolutely a self-evident truth that the contribution of African-Americans to the American Revolution have been largely overlooked by popular history. I've intended to do more with this idea but I have so many different Revolutionary research projects going I can't seem to finish one of them. The questions the author poses and begins to answer, though, are worth discussing.

Greene stated that the two essential questions that face Americans of color are what the Revolution has to do with them, and why black people would fight for a nation that held them in slavery. He wrote that the answers can only be obtained by first gaining a better understanding of the full facts surrounding black participation in the war.

As the sun set and the sky outside the giant windows in the library went dark, I delighted in Greene's clear, direct writing. No high-brow academic stuff here.

In short, he wrote that black men suffered just like their white counterparts in the war. Robert Green took a musket ball in the face. Thomas Lively lost his right eye in a battle and lost his leg in another. Caesar Skelton got stabbed in the back. An estimated 5,000 black men and women gave themselves to the cause of liberty -- their nation's and their own in hopes a victorious country would make good on its promise of freedom to those who served in Washington's army.

Why is this important to us today? I see it, as I believe Greene does, as a matter of simple fairness. A matter of telling a complete and unvarnished story about the full participation in the war that gave us this country. I've thought all day about what metaphor I might use to make this point. My first thought was naturally to compare telling an incomplete story to the idea of describing a beautiful woman but leaving out key details like the color of her eyes or the shape of her cheekbones. That doesn't do it justice, though.

As I sat here getting some directions from google for tomorrow's itinerary, I realized that failing to include the participation of African-Americans in the Revolutionary War would be like leaving out countless key turns when you're giving someone directions to an important destination. The poor sucker might not ever get there, or know how exactly he made it if he did manage to blindly stumble across it.

Time for me to go wash the mud off my hands. My wake up call is but hours away and there's much to explore tomorrow. 

George Washington and Michael Jackson: What a strange Fourth of July

When "George Washington" refused to shake my hand today, I could only shake my head: It had already been a very peculiar Fourth of July -- and it would get more bizarre before it was over. After studying and admiring the man for many years, I naturally leaped at the propitious moment to greet the general as he stood not far from the entrance of his Mount Vernon home.

"A gentleman from Virginia does not take the hand," he explained when I asked for the honor. "It is only from approximately Pennsylvania north where men engage in such a greeting. Where are you from?" 

"Georgia," I said. "I guess I should know better. So ... how do I greet you?"

"We bow," the courageous and patient commander said.

I immediately turned my head down and bent forward but saw out of the corners of my eyes he hadn't moved.

"But we are not monarchs," he said, gently. "There is no need for you to avert your eyes. Let us try this once more."

Feeling slightly ill at ease because of my thought that I was not worthy of the general's gaze but appreciating the lesson in equality he was trying to teach me, I maintained eye contact and bowed -- though the striking difference in our heights still made it difficult to keep him in my sight.

He nodded his head affirmatively and gave me a quick smile.

"Thank you, " I said.

Moments later, Washington's troops along with modern-day security forces jumped onto a new mission: A panicked father was screaming at the top of his lungs for his son, Teddy, last seen wearing a yellow shirt with "Nantucket" on it. The troops began their search.

Ten minutes passed, no Teddy.

Everyone on the front lawn repeated to each other the description of the boy we were looking for to make sure we had it right. Our stomachs tightening, we put down their slices of America's birthday cake as we all joined the search.

Five more minutes, no Teddy.

The father walked by, muttering to himself, "I've got to call my wife. I've got to call my wife."

Fearful tears broke out like the plague, jumping from one person to the next as the hunt continued. A voice from nowhere screamed, "We've got him! We've got Teddy!" Mount Vernon staff grabbed the father and told him they would take him to his son. He was safe.

We all breathed a hugh sigh of relief. I then went to do what I had come for -- paying my respects to the real George Washington at his tomb. I visit his home and his grave often; America would not exist today without him. As a student of the American Revolution and as a patriot, the Fourth of July means more to me than any other holiday. I well know what that whole generation endured to give us the country we have today.

My Independence Day got off to a strange start, though. First I opened The Washington Post and saw that it had published a letter I wrote last week in response to its absurd, sycophantic and worshipful coverage of the death of pop star-turned-freakish-pedophile Michael Jackson. Though I do media outreach for a living, I don't think I had ever written a letter to the editor for myself. Considering all I could say about the Fourth of July, I wasn't quite sure what to make of the fact my letter appeared today but was on the subject of the vile media and public praise of the once-talented entertainer who should have died in prison rather than in his mansion. A man does not pay $17 million to the family of a child he "allegedly" molested if he is innocent.

The Post also contained the story about Alaska governor Sarah Palin stepping down a year and a half early for no apparent reason. The Post reporters could make no more sense of the incoherent non-press conference than I could when I saw it last night. In typical Palin fashion, she took no questions -- choosing instead to ramble in so many directions with mal-formed thoughts that the viewer was left with as much clear information as before the event started.

The hormones inside me want me to like Palin because she is a very pretty woman. My conscience outweighs my porcine predisposition, though, and I just can't embrace the bubbly circumnavigator. I don't know that her departure from office, like Jackson's from the Earth, leaves any real void in our society, but I am at least happy for the wolves Palin is fond of allowing cowardly men with big guns to slaughter from airplanes. Maybe the Canis lupus will catch a break.

Paper perusing done, I hopped on my bike and headed to my first stop at the National Archives for what I thought was going to be a deeply moving ceremony that climaxed with a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. I stood ready for the air on my arms to stand up readers hit my favorite line about how "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Instead of an uplifting moment, the National Archives started well with music from Revolutionary War soldier re-enactors but dropped the ball with too much speech making. Adding insult to injury, the National Archives selected three children to do the reading. There is nothing more cloying than having children read a document that surpasses their understanding and that was written by grown men of great intelligence. I gagged when the first child approached the podium looking like he had just left an event at a private golf club. I left before the kid could even get to "laws of nature", giving the National Archives an "F" for its effort. Probably an F minus considering the poor quality of the sound system.

The ride out to Mount Vernon, though, was beautiful. I gave a triple thump on my heart (my own non-military version of a salute to something worth honoring) to the men buried in Arlington National Cemetery. I took in the view of the monuments sitting across the Potomac. I appreciated more than even usual the freedom to ride my bike anywhere my legs are willing to take me.

Despite the crowds, though, more odd things kept happening. Families walking on the trail kept themselves to just the right lane. Joggers only ran two to a side instead of in formation blocking the whole trail. Packs of bikers even rode single file. Weird.

On my return trip from Washington's home, I went back through security and, unlike during Inauguration Week, found LOCAL, courteous policemen and other security officers who were able to tell me how to get around security fencing to streets I needed to take. One even offered to inspect my water backpack while it was on my back so I didn't have to spend five minutes taking everything out.

With 50-plus miles under my belt on the day, I hit my own neighborhood and passed under the tracks that are but a few stone throws from where nine people died on the Metro crash last month.

Not long afterward, I saw an old man who had apparently collapsed on his driveway next to a cheap bike. He was motionless and I thought for a moment he might have had a heart attack. He sat up as I approached, and I opted not to mention the advice that a better bike would put less of a strain on him. Especially at his age.

I got home and replayed the beauty off the strange ride in my head. I thought of all the people I saw out having fun ... families of all races and melting pot mixes making all kinds of things on their grills, women jogging with their dogs, boaters cruising along the Potomac, men fishing on its banks. Friends throwing footballs and kicking soccer balls. A father pitching a Wiffle ball to his son. 

I sometimes get upset on the Fourth of July because I don't think people pay it or the generation of men and women that first gave us our freedom enough reverence. I do realize my own favorite founding father John Adams wrote that he expected this day to be commemorated with "Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other".

Though I take my history pretty seriously about every day of the year, maybe I should lighten up a little on this one. Maybe I should give my fellow Americans more credit. After all, it's almost time to watch the District's fireworks on TV while getting ready to walk over to Takoma Park's rendition.

Wait, no ... ABC News is STILL talking about Michael Jackson and bragging about the live coverage it will provide of his funeral. It's also "reporting" that staggering numbers of people are registering to obtain free tickets to his funeral service.

I sense Washington himself rolling over in his sarcophagus.

An army recruiter's toughest challenge: me

March 29, 2009 Sunday

Valley Forge, Pennsylvania -- Considering the turmoil America is in, it has got to be tough to be an Army recruiter like Sgt. Jeff Blessing. He can't lie to potential recruits: the hours can be long, the duty dangerous, and the pay but a pittance. Heat can annihilate you in the summer and you can freeze in the winter. Weapons can be hard to come by and their accuracy even more arduous to obtain.

Still, the sergeant knows he has a fish on the hook in the form of yours truly. I have approached him hesitantly, equal parts and excited and scared. My questions reveal that I've long thought about putting my love of liberty to the test, of defending my country, yet they can not mask the fact that I am for all practical purposes a city slicker. Never been much for sleeping on the ground, missing meals, or firing guns. I'm very athletic but I've got flat feet that make standing still a challenge and I already suffer from a constant ringing in my left ear. I can't even ride a horse.

Sgt. Blessing does have a few things on his side of the ledger, though. There's the spirit of adventure, patriotism, and those beautiful blue uniforms. Ah yes, the ladies do love a man in uniform.

The army man hands me an application. Just sign here, son, he says. We'll take care of you.

I walk away for the moment, afraid of making such a commitment. I tell the sergeant I'll be back. I need to think about it some. Maybe talk to my folks.

Not only will I be leaving home, I'll be stepping back in time -- all the way to the late 1770s. Sgt. Blessing, after all, is seeking men to join the Second Pennsylvania Regiment of The Continental Line -- a nonprofit, educational organization whose mission is to accurately depict American troops during the American Revolution. He and his brother-in-arms Jim Liddle also make ends meet in these uncertain economic times by adding to the ranks of the King's 43rd of Foot. (Don't spread that word 'round these parts. Blessing and Liddle are good men and they don't think the lobster backs are going to prevail in the end anyway.)

I turn my attention to other interests for the remainder of the "The Lock, Stock, and Barrel" Revolutionary War symposium sponsored by The Friends of Valley Forge Park.

All of the lectures stimulate my brain.

Philander Chase probes the mind of George Washington. Chase spent 35 years in the company of our first commander in chief, retiring recently as the editor of The Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia. Chase may know the general better than any many alive yet even he can't answer one of history's mysteries: Why did Washington suddenly change his penmanship? No one knows.

I sit a spell with Jim Hollister, a National Park Service ranger and education coordinator at Minute Man National Historical Park in Massachusetts. He delivers a riveting presentation examining the age-old riddles of what really happened at both Lexington and Concord. He weaves eye-grabbing photographs and gripping eye-witness accounts into his remarks, which end with me on the edge of my seat using my i-phone to check the price of train tickets to Boston. I later go out to dinner with him and his fiance Emily Murphy, a historian at Salem Maritime National Historic Site, and discover they are both sterling personal representatives of the park service. They're good people, as we say back in my parts.

I peek in on Valley Forge in 1778, where Paul Lockhart of Wright State University is recounting the fantastic story of how Prussian immigrant Friedrich de Steuben showed up on Washington's doorstep, convinced him that he could transform his army into a disciplined fighting force, and promptly proved himself worthy of the post. Lockhart's book, "The Drillmaster of Valley Forge"  is next on my reading list, though it pains me to think I didn't later ask him to sign a copy for me while he was standing right next to me -- at Valley Forge -- with his book in my hands.

Scribbling notes as has been my occupational and educational hazard for more than 20 years, I struggle to keep up with Thomas McGuire -- author of "Battle of Paoli" and of a book that's the subject at hand this day: His high-octane tour across The Philadelphia Campaign serves as yet another reminder of how much more I still have to learn about the Revolution, a subject that has long been the focus of a great deal of my energy.

I wish the conference could last longer but the clock is ticking on the weekend. I head back to Valley Forge for a very special tour -- a "behind the closed vaults" experience lead by NPS ranger Scott Houting. Most people quickly turn their attention to the authentic muskets, swords and powder horns that are always the eye candy of Revolutionary War exhibits. Behind locked doors, however, my eyes are immediately drawn to something that cranks up my heart rate.

No way, I think.

Yes way. Sitting before me is a letter written in 1777 by Washington's artillery commander, the Boston bookseller turned military genius who also became America's first Secretary of War -- Henry Knox, one of my all-time faves. But this is not just any letter. It is one of the very kinds of letters I have been studying lately for a magazine essay I'm working on. It's a love letter to his wife, Lucy. Of the great many poignant exchanges during the Revolutionary War, few are more touching than the favors traded by this pair. 

"I have received my dearest love letter of the 25th ultimo," he begins. "I want words to express the pleasure it gave me." 

The sweet sentiment rolls through the course of the missive and endears me yet more to the general and to his wife -- a woman of British parents who made great personal sacrifices to marry and stay loyal to her rebel husband.

I couldn't imagine a more beautiful way to take leave of the Lock, Stock, and Barrel event but I knew there was one thing I still needed to do. I followed the sound of the musket and cannon fire to the top of a hill so that I could shake Blessing's hand and affirm that I will consider his offer; I've just got a lot to think about as joining Washington's men would be a serious commitment of time and money.

The good sergeant, though, has my attention -- and every good Army recruiter knows that is truly half the battle. Especially at Valley Forge, where our troops must persevere if America is to have a chance.

Saving history with "my tribe"

March 27, 2009 Friday

Valley Forge, Pennsylvania -- "Where's my tribe?" That's a question I've asked myself many times over the years. I found at least one answer here at Valley Forge National Historical Park where our army spent a grueling winter in 1778 and 1779 and where I spent time today amongst a community with whom I share a great common interest and bond.

In town for the second historical symposium, "Lock, Stock, and Barrel: The World of The Revolutionary War Soldier", I spent the afternoon riding my bike alongside Washington and his men. I have grown quite close to our first commander in chief over the years and sometimes feel his presence more strongly here than I do at his home at Mount Vernon. I looked across the fields and could not fully  imagine what life was like for our troops that winter but listening to their stories through my cell phone at stops along the way made it seem even more personal. Like they were right there in front of me. Breaking a comfortable sweat in my summer clothes and top-of-the-line tennis shoes, my heart reached out to the men who stood barefoot in the snow.

After a quick shower, I returned to the visitor's center for a kickoff reception sponsored by The Friends of Valley Forge Park -- organizer of the weekend workshop. I quickly realized I belonged with this group ... people who think about the same things I do and who have the same passions, fears and hopes.

These are people, patriots all, who seek to share our love of American history and the Revolution in particular. We are also people trying to prevent its death.

A demise of history -- the failure to pass to the next generation the joy of learning what it can teach us and how it can inspire us -- would be a crippling blow to our culture. History is what sets forth the virtues and ideals that we as a nation strive to uphold. It's also the wildly exciting account of how flawed people just like us managed to overcome their own limitations and global events to give us all the opportunities to pursue our own happiness in whichever ways we choose. The struggles they faced, though different in time and technology, are challenges that offer insight for us today.

History is not fairing very well, though. It's hardly taught in school anymore and the people who love it the most won't be with us much longer. Already facing decreasing political support before the economy crashed, federal and state funding for historical places and programs sits with its neck exposed to a chopping block.

People like Michael and Michelle Harris can read the diagnosis as well as anyone. The husband and   wife  who work for Brandywine Battlefield Park and Lower Perkiomen Valley Park are on the front lines of the battle to plant seeds of excitement in the hearts and minds of more citizens. Picking up on the common thread of conversation that night, they talked about how important it is for history lovers to reach out and expand the base. (I frequently lament that history is often the domain of old white male, white collar men --even if I'm nearing a three-for-three on the demographic myself.) 

When their generation passes, who will be there to advocate for the gold mine of civic engagement that history inspires? Who will provide the grassroots political and financial support for institutions like Valley Forge and those the Harris duo works for? Who will be left to tell America's story and and guide us in the fight for her future?

Michael and Michelle feel the urgency of passing the torch to more hands. Greeting every visitor they meet as if it may be America's last chance to spark an interest in her history, they talk to old and young. They talk to white, black and every shade in between ... to the rich and to the struggling. Though they may never know the fruits of their labor, Michelle is constantly energized by stories she heard about the impact she made as a 19-year-old museum intern. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she gave a presentation to a young girl who became so enamored with the subject that it propelled her to turn her life around by getting interested in school for the first time.

Stories of lives changing through the gentle embrace of history aren't limited to children. Barbara Pollarine, a National Park Service deputy superintendent for Valley Forge, tells the story of a man who was ordered by his doctors to get in shape or face dire consequences. He turned to the park as a site for exercise, falling in love with the place and going on to dedicate his time and talents to its mission.

Don Naimoli, meanwhile, is one of the field generals of that operation. As chairman of The Friends of Valley Forge Park, he is orchestrating plans to protect and preserve the park. The site is sadly sometimes the victim of its own success and needs great upkeep. It must thwart the attacks of land and road development and other challenges. It must advocate for the federal funding needed to run it. He hopes to increase the troops enlisted in the Friends' organization so that more people are able to lend their voices to the cause. Every person who joins gives the volunteer organization that much more muscle and clout.

I could have talked to everyone in that room all night long, and nearly did. I realized it was time to go when only the Friends' board members were left and they had brooms in their hands. I admire everyone I met today and hope to do my part in the coming years to share the thrill of American history with greater numbers of people. I can think of a thousand ways I can use my brain, keyboard and enthusiasm to accomplish exactly that.

I sit here at my hotel room desk tonight still buzzing with the joy of meeting so many people today, and the Lock, Stock and Barrel workshop doesn't even start until Saturday. I see now that this is what it feels like to spend a day uniting with my tribe -- both the living and the dead.

Blood on the sidewalk

I stumbled into the Smithsonian's S. Dillon Ripley Center today, realizing the tiny kiosk of an entrance wasn't just housing for a brochure wrack or water fountain. My accidental discovery of a portal that sits invisibly in the shadow of the great castle beside it lead me down a winding staircase to an underground world of riveting exhibits -- including one that should be seen by everyone who thinks Barack Obama's election means it's time to stop talking about how we can improve racial relations ... if they can stomach the sight of a black man's blood spilling across the sidewalk.

The "Road To Freedom" drew me in because its focus -- photographs of the Civil Rights movement from 1956-1968 -- hit close to home. A Georgia boy who's a product of the New South, I knew I'd recognize many of the subjects. They're heroes to people like me and I've had the fortune to meet several of them. The exhibit itself is presented by Atlanta's High Museum of Art and some of the photos are being displayed for the first time.

Enter the exhibit and you are confronted by a nearly life-sized photograph of Martin Luther King Jr., and his wife Coretta marching toward you. All sound disappears as you get lost in the inspiring, and sometimes gruesome, display of black and white photos. Initially, I got lulled into happiness: There's a photo of a baby-faced Julian Bond, another of King standing in front of a portrait of Gandhi. There's a shot of King deep in concentration with his friends John Lewis, who would become an Atlanta congressman, and Andrew Young, who would become my hometown's mayor.

The levity didn't last.

I saw the National Guard snatch a photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee out of the hands of protesters. I absorbed shots of Rosa Parks getting arrested, a white man hitting a black reporter on the head while the valiant Little Rock 9 put their lives on the line.

I watched another white man pour cleaning agents into a swimming pool in Florida while black swimmers tread for equality. Police dogs tore into the flesh of another young African-American man, smoke poured out of a Freedom Rider bus, and James Meredith took a sniper's bullet. Police stung protesters with water cannons. White men attacked a group of black people who had the audacity to try to spend money in stores.

Ought of nowhere, I caught a glimpse of King sitting on the floor of his home relaxing with his family: Coretta and his daughter sat on the couch while King kept his son from wandering away with a hula hoop. I don't think I have ever seen an image of King smiling. It's almost hard to imagine a martyr experiencing moments like regular people but it felt good to think there was some joy in his life.

Several shots of a skinny Jesse Jackson threw me off, too, including one of him leading a poor people's march in front of the Washington Monument. He has been a headline-chasing demagogue for so long that I had forgotten he was once a more real person capable of independent thought. Though I was honored to meet him in my college days, I had tuned him out for ages -- but I had been thinking about him a lot since television caught him crying during Obama's inauguration. He became more human to me again.

I have also been thinking a lot about the Dr. Joseph Lowery, the reverend who gave the benediction at Obama's inauguration. I had the honor of working with Rev. Lowery on a particular crusade for justice earlier in this decade and found him to be one of the finest human beings I have ever met. On January 20th, I couldn't stop wondering what must have been going through his mind as he thought about America on the National Mall  when King shared his dream and America on the National Mall as Obama took the oath of office.

A friend of mine watching the ceremonies on TV with her nine-year-old son and some of his friends seemed to have it figured out. "Obama made King's dream come true," one of them said. "No," countered another, "the American people did."

I'm not sure which side Lowery would take, but he, Jackson, and Lewis did all answer the repeatedly asked question from reporters about whether they thought 40 years ago that a black man (or even a bi-racial one) would ever be elected president of the United States. They all said yes but they just didn't know when. It's hard for me to imagine they really thought that back then -- believed yes, but thought, no. How could it not have seemed preposterous at the time?

My train of thought came to a halt when I looked up and saw a shot of an unknown black man face down on a New Jersey sidewalk, blood pouring out of his skull, across the cement and onto the street.

America has certainly come a long way since then, as President Obama and Dr. Lowery can attest. Just because one dream has been achieved, though, doesn't mean we should stop talking about the sacrifices people made to get us here. We should remember the non-violent marchers and the boy-cotters, the students and the swimmers ... all the folks who took a beating or surrendered their lives to help America cross a literal and a figurative bridge to become a nation where more people who don't look alike can get along, and where everybody has an equal right to pursue all the happiness and freedom our country offers.

One of the best things we can do to honor their memory is continue to confront our own prejudices and encourage our friends and families to the same. One dream may be realized but we still have the chance to make it more concrete. More permanent. We can make it come true for increasing numbers of people, too.

We can also visit exhibits like the "Road To Freedom", even if like racism they're sometimes hidden in plain sight on the very Mall where America's greatest dream was born.

 

 

Franklin's print shop and the dingy hands of democracy

PHILADELPHIA -- I stand on the cobblestone street in Franklin Court and imagine Ben Franklin walking into his print shop in 1729, the year he and a partner purchased The Pennsylvania Gazette. The one-time apprentice who learned the printing business through the sweat of his brow smiles as he glances at the young men following in his footsteps.

One hovers over a table typesetting the next edition -- reading a hand-written document and then placing tiny metal blocks with letters on them in what looks like a tray with wooden strips forming the borders of what will become printed pages. The physical dexterity required is just part of the man's challenge. He also has to lay in the tiny blocks upside down and backward so that the documents read left to right and right side up when stamped on to a page.

Another man is covered in the black, sticky ink he's applying to a block of type with padded leather  balls. Once properly coated, he inserts into the press a damp piece of cloth that's wet enough to absorb the ink, slides the block in position, and uses his labor-born pectorals and arms to force the block onto the page. He releases the lever, grabs what looks like a brick oven pizza remover, pulls the paper off the press and hangs it on an overhead wrack to dry. Then he steps back to the press to start all over again.

It is grueling, repetitive, and dingy work. It's made worse by the overpowering odor that clings to their hands and attacks their nostril hair ... chamberlye. That's the polite term for the urine-based cleaning solution that had to be applied to the equipment.

Yes, trace the roots of our democracy and you find they pass through chamber pots and come out like Andy Dufresne clean on the other side. You find the un-sung workday heroes who cranked out the newspapers, pamphlets and books that enlightened the colonists and made possible the American Revolution.

Franklin had tremendous admiration and respect for the power the printing press. He also advanced the profession. He was the first to insert cartoons and maps in a newspaper. The May 9, 1754 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette contained America's first political cartoon -- the serpentine "Join, or Die" illustration that called for colonial unity.

I too am awed by what the pressmen of the 18th century achieved.

"Reading's the means by which the lowest man can lift himself up from a state of ignorance," a press owner told a newly arrived colonist in volume one of John Jakes' epic historical fiction series about the Revolution, The Kent Family Chronicles.

My emotional connection to the printing press runs deep. I joined my school newspaper in eighth grade and stayed with it through junior high and high school.

A bright-eyed University of Georgia student back in the long-time-agos, I had the fortune to be the founding managing editor of The Campus Times. The upstart paper sought to compete with the long-standing student paper. I remember the day our first issue thundered through the two-story press bringing our ideas to life: "That's a powerful tool you got there," the old man running the facility said. He implored us to use it wisely.

I have treated the mass-produced word with sacrosanct respect ever since. The reverence has followed me through my careers in journalism and public relations and is in my heart every time I turn on my computer to write on this new-fangled treasure we call the Internet.

I have also had the divine pleasure to hold in my hands numerous, original Revolutionary publications that paved the way for independence and democracy. I've read books owned and inscribed by Thomas Jefferson, other books Franklin himself wrote in, and a first edition of Common Sense.

Through the fortune of knowing the right person, I have also held in my hands a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was among the first to roll off John Dunlap's Philadelphia press on the very afternoon the fellas in the Pennsylvania State House stuck it to 'ol King George. Tears filled my eyes the moment the document was placed in my hands because I recognized immediately that I had reached the zenith of what a patriot and a student of history can experience.

My head was spinning from the thrill.

I poured over the words so familiar to me now and graciously returned the document to its proprietor.

I sat there, stunned, for what seemed like a long time. Then I gave thanks not just to the famous 56 men but to the countless unheralded souls who fought black, sticky ink and pots full of piss to educate our people and give us a nation.   

President's Day Parade: Americans all in Alexandria

[Ed. Note: All photos by James Navarro.]

Danny McCullough sat on a curb near King Street in Old Town Alexandria today ready to celebrate two things: his country and his family.

"This is a celebration of America," the 21-year military veteran said as the annual parade to honor George Washington began. "People forget about the good things sometimes. And Washington was one of the Founding Fathers, the first general, the first president. It's appropriate to honor him."

Sitting next to wife Maria and surrounded by some of their children, the Washington Redskins fan had something else on his mind.

"My daughter is in the parade," he beamed. "She's with the Twirl Factory of Virginia. This is an opportunity for our family to be together, to enjoy doing something together."

Unfortunately for him, his 7-year-old was scheduled to be among the last to march -- meaning the black clouds rolling in would, well, rain on his parade.

A few feet away, a man named Louie watched as the parade kicked in to the next gear. The City of Alexandria Pipes and Drums strolled by, the bagpipes and booming beat bringing people to their feet. A local fire truck let its siren rip.

"This reminds me of growing up in Boston," he reminisced. "We had all these parades ... it was very patriotic there. This gives me that same feeling."

It was exactly the kind of sentiment that brought me there. I wanted to take advantage of another  opportunity to experience and celebrate the bonds that hold the red, white and blue together. It's often hard to feel a sense of community and country in the rush of daily life. Parades take us back in time, and closer to each other.

The people lining the streets all felt it. Adults and children alike waved American flags and cheered every group that walked by. African-Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans spoke to each other without the slightest barrier between us. Biracial couples and their children bore testament to the slow but steady progress we're making toward an America in which color genuinely does not matter.

The canine-Americans in attendance might have a head start on their upright walking companions, though. Black Labs, white bulldogs, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, big 'ol Newfoundland mixes, itty bitty Beagles ... all took in the parade without so much as a growl.

Maybe they sensed their owners' reverence for more of the parade's participants. A group of people representing the Military Order of the Purple Heart went by -- all but one of our gray-haired heroes riding in shiny new cars. One man wanted to show his heart was still strong, however. The crowd applauded ever more loudly with every gimpy step he made.

We gave it up for the T.C. Williams High School Marching Band, American Red Cross, U.S. Postal Service, Freemasons, Sons of the American Revolution, National Park Service and more. Shriners in midget cars raced by. A gaggle of clowns hit the streets making kids and the young at heart laugh out loud. One raced up to a man with a home video camera and stuck his big red nose right into his lens.

"Is that TV?," he asked. "I'm so excited. I'm going to be on TV! I'm going to be on TV!" The man's grandchildren couldn't get enough.

The next group in the procession was the one I most wanted to see: Revolutionary War re-enactors marched in perfect cadence. Their sharp blue coats and crisp white pants, though, gave them away a bit. So did the fact that they all had shoes. Many of Washington's men weren't so lucky. The soldiers who gave us the nation we have today were often tattered twigs that walked barefoot. They ate tree bark to fool their stomachs into keeping them alive for one more day.

An 18-month-old named Page stared at the modern-day version's shiny buttons with parents Lori and  Chris.

"This is about American history," Lori said. "Children need to start becoming aware of history. The George Washington parade is educational but fun. And Page, she just likes waving flags."

 

Library of Congress: America's past, my future

Turning a page of the writings of George Washington at the Library of Congress this Saturday morning, I caught my reflection in the glass covering the brown reading desks. My face was enveloped by the image of the Jefferson reading room dome also bouncing off the glass. I noticed the sunlight pouring in through one of the stained glass windows.

Though I'm not one to long pause in front of a mirror, something about my auto-view held my attention. Perhaps it was the tranquility of the moment ... knowing that I was yet again hanging out in my favorite place in the District, a town where I have for the past eight months been living the life of my dreams. I am doing work in the nonprofit sector that means something to me, making new friends, collecting new experiences, and challenging my mind -- many new assertions unsettling what I thought I once knew.

I looked into the Library of Congress desk and wondered if I would be measuring my age by that very view in the years to come. I can not imagine ever leaving this city; I am perhaps more so than I have ever been, home.

Then I turned my eyes back to George Washington and the stark thoughts that were on his mind in 1776.

From a letter written on May 1 to Major General Charles Lee:

"... I thank you for your good wishes in our future operations, and hope that every diabolical attempt to deprive mankind of their inherent rights and privileges, whether made in the East, West, North or South, will be attended with disappointment and disgrace, and that the authors in the end will be brought to such punishment, as an injured people have a right to inflict."

Orders given to his troops in New York on July 2, while Congress was giving its initial approval to the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, moved me even more:

"... The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them.

"The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army -- Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect -- We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own Country's Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world.

"Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, and whose hands Victory is, and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily we encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for LIBERTY on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth."

Library of Congress: Hanging out with Uncle Ben (Franklin)

A Friday off in D.C.? I knew where I was headed -- straight to the Library of Congress, my very favorite place in all of Washington. If you haven't camped out there yourself, you need to march down to the corner of Independence Avenue and First Street, hit the Madison Building, spend 10 minutes getting a researcher's card, and start racking up mind-blowing experiences.

Name your passion and you can feed it there: the Library of Congress is the ultimate cathedral of knowledge -- absolute nirvana for the intellectually curious. The Jefferson Building is also the most beautiful building in the entire city. The only way to really appreciate the Library's splendor, though, is to roll up your sleeves and use it. (Take a research orientation session to get a great start.)

I took a side excursion today from the potential book project I've been tinkering with for the past two years -- doing a little backfill on my knowledge of the American Revolution thanks to a suggestion from Mr. Evans, one of the many LOC specialists who genuinely enjoys helping library users. Today's treat from the Rare Books room was a work published in 1766 by Allan Ramsay entitled "Thoughts on the origin and nature of government" -- a British perspective on the audacious American backlash against the Stamp Act of 1765.

But that's not the best part.

The book, later owned by Thomas Jefferson, contained heaps of ink from the hand of Benjamin Franklin. I think of him as "Uncle Ben" as he was the most gregarious and eccentric of the Founding Fathers. I realize he was often cold toward his own family, but there's no question I would have been his favorite nephew. And Uncle Ben, like my dear friend John Adams, was known for applying heavy doses of the quill to the books he read. I do the same myself.

Nothing makes history come alive more than when you hold in your own hands the very articles touched by the heroes of the past. It's a rush; there's no other way to describe it. 

I pulled up to a reading table adorned with brass lamps, creaking from an antique wooden chair heightening my anticipation, and went back in time ... sitting right next to Uncle Ben while he personally lambasted what he saw as the wrong-headed thinking of Mr. Ramsay. It was like an 18th Century version of CNN's old "Crossfire". Ramsay's goal: rebuff Colonial opposition to what they see as taxation without representation; Franklin's mission: Digest his arguments, then shoot holes in them.

Tune into the highlights below. Forgive the fact I couldn't make out a few of Franklin's words -- his ink, after all, dried some 241 years ago. And don't forget people of the 1700s wrote and punctuated a little differently than we do today.

Ramsay: Whatever may have given encouragement to such an attack, I am heartily sorry for it: but the attack being now made, it becomes the duty of every man who wishes well to this flourishing empire, the prosperity, the very existence of which depend upon the union of all of its parts under one head, to repel the attack by all the means which law, justice and good sense authorize.

Franklin: If such a union be necessary to Great Britain let her endeavor to obtain it by fair means. It cannot be forced.

Ramsay: (Notes that the underlying principal of the debate is) that all men in their natural state are free and independent: but if we are to judge of the nature of man, as we do of the nature of other existences, by experience, there can be no foundation more unsound. No history of the past, no observation of the present time, can be brought to countenance such a natural state; nor were men ever known to exist in it, except for a few minutes, like fishes out of the water, in great agonies, terror and convulsions.

This principle of equal right to liberty, which can hardly be separated from that of an equal right to property, has never been actually acknowledged by any but the very lowest class of men; who have been easily persuaded to embrace so flattering a doctrine from the mouth of a WAT TYLER or JACK CADE, and in consequence of it, for it leads to nothing else, have cut the throats and seized the goods of their masters.

Franklin: This writer is ignorant that all of the Indians of North America not under the dominion of the Spaniards, are in that natural state, being restricted by no laws, having no courts or ministries of justice, no (unintelligible), no prisons, no governors vested with any legal authority. The persuasion of men distinguish by reputation of wisdom is the only means by which others are governed or (unintelligible). And the state of these Indians was probably the first state of all nations.

Ramsay: The position, however, being established, this farther has been added to it, that all of the rights of government are derived from a voluntary contract, by which each man gives up, as it were into a common flock, a small portion of this natural liberty, in order to form a sovereign power for the protection of the whole, and of every individual. But unfortunately, no such state of independence was ever known to exist, no voluntary contract was ever known to be entered into; so that if the legality of government depend upon it, it follows, that there never existed a legal government in any part of the globe.

Franklin: This is an assertion contrary to fact, as I have shown above, and therefore all the inferences from it are unfounded.

Ramsay: (States that weak people by nature seek the superior to take care of them.)

Franklin: May not equals unite with equals for common purposes?

Ramsay: (States that is the superior who best know how to run governments.)

Franklin: (Using a little sarcasm) That is, he that is strongest may do what he pleases with those that are weaker. A most equitable law of nature indeed.

Franklin: (On a roll as he refutes several of the next Ramsay assertions) Does he expect ever to see rulers incapable of mistakes, even the smallest? ... No wonder these comments were not attended to, as perhaps they never were before heard of. ... All mere quibbling.

Ramsay: (Declares that the consent of the people in England is not required for taxation by their representatives.) ... I have taken a great deal of pains to show that the notion of people consenting to their own taxation is contrary to the nature of government, and unsupported by any fact. I have been at pains to show that the notion of legislative power acting by virtue of representation, is no principle in the British Constitution; and I have finished by showing that the words virtual representation, either mean nothing at all, or mean a great deal more than those who use them would be willing to admit; and yet, after all my pains, my American antagonists are as much out of my reach as before.

Franklin: A most imprudent assertion! How comes it then, that the Commons only, who are chosen by the people, grant money and lay taxes? ... They would once have us Americans satisfied with this notion of virtual representation: But having made them ashamed of it, they now tell us there is no such thing in the British Constitution as representation at all!

Ramsay: One moment they (Colonists) desire no more than what belongs to every British subject; the next they refuse to be taxed like other British subjects, and each colony requires a parliament of its own.

Franklin: A falsity! They were always taxed like British subjects by their own representatives, and are willing to continue to be taxed. ... When an American says he has a right to all the privileges of a British subject, he does not call himself a British subject; he is an American subject of the king. The charters say they shall be entitled to all the privileges of Englishmen as if they had been born within the Realm. But they were and are without the Realm, therefore not British subjects.

Ramsay: (Makes historical reference England hitting Scotland in 1725 with a malt tax, a new tax similar to the Stamp Tax in the Colonies. He writes that Britain sent troops in to stop protests then, too, because force was more effective "than all the eloquence of Cicero or Mansfield.")

Franklin: Would you charge the riots to the acts of all of Scotland, as you do those in Boston to all the Americans? ... Troops have been sent to Boston; but with what effect? They have made the matter worse.

Ramsay: (Attacks the Colonists who pulled down houses, dragged people to the tree of liberty and obliged them to take God to witness to sentiments not their own for fear of being put to death.) These are outrages which none but the most ignorant and distempered imaginations could ever dread from any established government, and yet are committed by those, who, in the very height of their riots, complain of cruel and arbitrary exertions of power in the mild government of Great Britain, under the most just and humane of kings.

Franklin: What is all this to the purpose? Have not the Americans condemned these actions and made good all damages to the sufferers? How wicked it is, then, thus to misrepresent a country, in order to irritate government against it!

Ramsay: I shall therefore conclude with saying that the separation of Great Britain from her American appertinencies would be destructive of the prosperity and liberty of both. If so, it seems to follow that till such time as New England is strong enough to protect Old England, --

Franklin: This protection is mutual and equal in proportion to numbers and wealth, at present.

Ramsay: -- and the (?) of the British empire is transferred from London to Boston, there is an absolute necessity that the right of giving law to America, should continue to be vested in Great Britain. That it is the interest of Great Britain to protect and cherish her American provinces instead of oppressing them, is an undeniable truth; and it is, perhaps, no less true, that some farther attention, and some farther means of communication, are still wanting to that desirable end: but let every true friend to Britain and to all her connections stand forth in defense of her great legislative and uncontrollable power, without which non union, and of course no safety, can be expected. (End of the book.)

Franklin: (Takes the liberty of the last word by writing beneath Ramsay's final paragraph.) This writer is concise, lively, and elegant in his language, but his reasonings are too refined and paradoxical to make impression on the understanding or convince the minds of his readers. And his main fact on which they are founded is a mistake.

Philadelphia, my heroes, and the spirit of 1776

I exited the train station in Philadelphia and wasted no time. I spent all of five minutes unpacking at my hotel and headed to hallowed ground.

I walked east along Market Street hardly believing in the vision of what was ahead. My metabolism got the best of me, though, and I had to stop at Burger King before I stepped back to a time when another king was much on the minds of the local populace. A double bacon cheeseburger combo and a few blocks later, there it was.

Independence Hall.

I'll be damned.

It does exist in places other than the pages of the history books and the images of my imagination.

After a lifetime fascination with and study of the American Revolution, I approached the historic hall with all the reverence of a person of faith visiting a holy land. A National Park Service ranger opened the door and I lost my breath. Right there, in that very room, I was communing with the great 56 men who overcame bitter political disagreements and put the common good above all else -- just as another group would do on that exact same spot 11 years later. In my mind, I could hear the reading of Richard Henry Lee's resolution of June 7, 1776:

"Resolved: That these united Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

I saw my beloved John Adams, the Founding Father I am closer to than any other, make a rousing speech on July 2 -- America's true birthday -- that garnered majority support for a Declaration of Independence whose heavily edited drafts longed for approbation. (Unanimity, of course, was the only option, and the congress delayed formal passage until the fourth in order to obtain the votes.) Walking sticks pounded the wooden floor as exclamation points to Adams' gifted oratory. I felt the sweltering heat and frayed nerves of the over-taxed, august body rallying behind him. I picked up the clippety-clop of a horse carrying a rain-soaked delegate arriving at the eleventh hour. I observed Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin taking it all in. I strained to make out a Georgia delegate, Button Gwinnett, whose virtually invisible trail I've chased for the past two years. Perhaps he was a ghost even then.

Standing in Independence Hall in both 2007 and 1776, I was lost in the palpable excitement, fear, uncertainty and bravery of the men committing the treasonous act of disposing a king and giving birth to a new nation. Goosebumps arose as they always do when I think of perhaps their most powerful words:

"We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred honor."

Wow.

Congressional president John Hancock and secretary Charles Thompson signed the hand-written copy and sent it over to the printing shop of John Dunlap, where his crew toiled through the night to reproduce the words ... words that were not given public voice until July 8, when Col. John Nixon of the Philadelphia Committee of Safety read them aloud to the crowd packing the courtyard outside Independence Hall (then known as the State House).

I was completely surprised to realize that the very copy Nixon held in his hands rests in a small room next to the Hall -- in perfect condition 231 years after its debut. My nerves trembled even more a moment later when I saw another American treasure I did not know existed. One of my hobbies is writing letters to special people with a quill feather pen -- my symbolic way of honoring my love for those friendships and and for history. I had no idea I would stumble across the silver Syng inkstand used by the signers of both the Declaration and the Constitution.

Awesome.

Just outside the doors of that hidden gem is the entrance to Congress Hall, home to the U.S. Congress from 1790 to 1800. George Washington took his second oath of office there. I still can't quite get my mind around the enormity of the next great event that unfolded in its confines, when Washington willingly handed the reigns to power to my dear friend Adams.

Said King George III himself of the pending act:

“If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."

Washington and Adams are also present a few stone throws away at a lesser known but equally moving corner of the great city: Washington Square, a former burial ground that nows holds the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution. Words on a wall beside a small statue of our first military commander say what needs to be said:

"Freedom is a light for which men have died in darkness ... Beneath this stone rests a soldier of Washington's Army who died to give you liberty."

Die they did. Thousands of soldiers' coffins were dumped unceremoniously into common pits -- intermingled with sailors, convicts and "the destitute who's remains are walked over."

According to signage at and near the tomb:

"Throughout that winter (1777), disease thinned the ranks of the American army. John Adams, a member of the Continental Congress meeting in Independence Hall, visited the square in April 1777. He spent an hour 'in the congregation of the dead.' The graves of the soldiers, perhaps 2,000 he had been told, 'are enough to make the heart of stone melt away.'"

The tomb is a quiet, solemn place, as it should be, but locals pay it little attention -- and the throngs of tourists just a block away don't seem to care, either ... even though the eternal flame dedicated in 1976 humbly asks for company. I was transfixed by this unexpected site and honored to pay my respects. I stayed there for a long time, almost able to hear the the cries of pain coming from soldiers in their final hour. I wondered what went through their minds as they took their last breaths ... if they thought they were dying for a greater good or a lost cause.

My trance was broken by a bell ringing from the direction of Independence Hall. I hoped the souls of the men buried beneath me could hear the sound -- the same they would have heard upon the signing of the U.S. Constitution a decade later ... a toll letting them know the fledgling nation they gave their lives to creating did in fact survive, and that we are ever-thankful for the sacrifice they made.