Reclaiming our (R)evolutionary Powers
on Declaration Day
This 4th of July, a whole day of festivities has been created for Schenectady's inaugural "Declaration Day" festivities to celebrate (and reclaim) our revolutionary powers to declare new worlds into being and organize ourselves to bring about our collective Safety and Happiness.
For this month's Food for Thought, we'll take a minute to reflect more deeply about how we can go beyond celebrating liberty as merely a right or a concept, to embrace liberty as a life-giving practice. And, instead of celebrating the "Declaration of Independence" as if it were merely a historic event or 249-year old artifact, we explore how it offers us a call to action as powerful today as it was in 1776.
To begin, we reflect on (r)evolutionary power as it's been pulsing through our Mohawk River Valley this week.
Celebrating (R)evolutionary Power
In this issue of The Beet, we celebrated community leaders who came together for the "Schenectady Food & Poverty Speak Out" in keeping with the traditions of the Poor People's Campaign started in 1968. We shared a link to a recording of the evening's program, as well as photos from the event.
You may have noticed that the sign in front of the podium read "Poverty = Death."
From behind the podium, courageous community members spoke their truths out loud. As a collective, they shared stories about the ways current systems - housing systems, labor systems, transportation systems, criminal justice systems, education systems, health systems, food systems, immigration systems and more - have been threatening their lives, their freedoms, and their pursuits of happiness.
They also shared stories about the power of the people coming together in solidarity and mutual support to effect systemic change. The earliest speakers spoke about how this power first emerged in their group, as they got to listen to each others stories, meaningfully connect, break bread together, and begin to care for each other as family. And they also shared how this power shaped structural change too - such as the recent advocacy victory of passing the Universal School Meals Act to guarantee that each NY school student is guaranteed a free breakfast and lunch.
They also used their voices to share visions of the future that stretched well beyond the realities we have inherited. As an example, TeAna Taylor's personal story (including growing up in Schenectady as the daughter of an incarcerated father) emphasized that you can't talk about ending poverty - or hunger - without talking about ending incarceration. She invited those gathered to keep working towards real solutions rather than perpetual punishment, and shared how bringing our loved ones home is one of the most powerful anti-poverty strategies - and a food justice strategy, and a community healing strategy, too. Drawing attention to the extreme cost of housing inmates - $60,000-$100,000 per one person per year - she invited everyone to dream of what could be created with those savings - livable wages, affordable housing, trauma-informed schools and programs for our young people. She closed with a call for collective action, "lets fight for freedom, for dignity, for real investment in our people."
In short, the collective set of personal stories shared powerfully expressed:
the existence of oppressive systems that must be dismantled;
visions of the future that could serve as guiding lights;
the power of advocacy (e.g. to use our words to voice new possibilities and create new agreements to protect and serve life).
The Speak Out hosted by the SCFC Community Advocates was a powerful reminder that liberty is a practice - a practice that is necessarily both individual and collective.
In a certain light, the Statue of Lady Liberty is, herself, a powerful symbol of that practice.
In Schenectady, Lady Liberty stands at Gateway Plaza, before the Pride & Black Lives Matter Arches that invite passersby to walk through the history of social movements working to expand life, liberty, and justice for all.
But even unto herself upon her pedestal, she carries important guidance about the practice of liberty.
Originally envisioned by a French abolitionist, Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye, as a gift that France could give to the United States in celebration of the end of slavery. He envisioned this statue "Lady Liberty Enlightening the World" with the flame of truth and enlightenment in one hand, and broken chains in the other. By the time the statue was erected in New York City's harbor in 1886, the chains had moved to her feet, and her second arm came to hold a tablet marked with the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
And so, in Lady Liberty, we are reminded:
To break free of the chains that bind us,
To keep our light shining with our eyes on the horizon of possibility and our moral imaginations stretched towards the long arc of justice, and
To continue honoring the truths we have declared to be self-evident and embracing our capacities to declare new possibilities into existence with our words and agreements with one another.
A Closer Look at Our Declaration's
Self-Evident Truths
What are the self-evident truths that Lady Liberty is reminding us of as she lifts her tablet to the world stage?
As Harvard Law Professor Danielle Allen notes in her book, Our Declaration: A Close Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, the second sentence of this world-changing piece of collective, democratic writing is arguably its most important. This is the sentence where the many authors make bold declarations of "self-evident" - and therefore universal - truths. More specifically, in that single sentence, they declare *5* truths to be self-evident, each building on the others, and contributing to a larger whole.
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;
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Taken as a whole, it becomes clear that the only way we can secure our rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness is through our willingness to self-organize in ways that effect our Safety and Happiness.
If we do not create governments "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," we will not secure our fundamental rights.
Moreover, if we do not stay vigilant and challenge our government leaders when they enact a form of government that threatens life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it's our responsibility to self-organize and self-govern in accordance with principles that may better afford our Safety and Happiness.
The Practice of Liberty
Could it be that the Statue of Liberty is suggesting that one of the most patriotic actions we can take at this moment on the clock of the world is to fight for a revolution of values to end poverty? A 2024 report found that poverty is the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S. To that end, 250,000 people die every year – that’s 700 people a day – from poverty and inequality. The Poor People's campaign insists that theses deaths are unnecessary and could be prevented through systemic efforts and structural policy change. And they are building movements to repair the breach in our nation's social fabric and social contract for a future where we all my have the opportunity to live and pursue our happiness.
Alas, most Americans tend to stop reading the second sentence after the word "Happiness." Perhaps this is because of a reproduction error in the National Archives that puts a period there, before an em dash. Whatever the cause, many Americans tend to focus on our individual rights to do what we want. During our annual Independence Day Celebrations, we have yet to make a habit of considering our Declarations' self-evident truths about our inescapable interdependence and collective responsibilities to one another.
Could our celebrations of Declaration Day in Schenectady County enable us to step more fully into our (r)evolutionary powers, individually and collectively? Perhaps!
In any case, we hope you'll join us for what promises to be an inspiring and enlivening day of community festivities as we revive a tradition older than fireworks — the power of the people’s declarations. From Frederick Douglass to the Dreamers, from Sojourner Truth to Stonewall, the American story has been moved forward by those bold enough to speak truth to power and declare new worlds into being. It's time to celebrate the continuation of this legacy!
Because freedom isn’t finished. Justice isn’t inevitable. And hope is a practice.
"Our challenge, as we enter the new millennium, is to deepen the commonalities and the bonds between these tens of millions, while at the same time continuing to address the issues within our local communities by two-sided struggles that not only say ‘no’ to the existing power structure but also empower our constituencies to embrace the power within each of us to create the world anew." - Grace Lee Boggs, From The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century