A 6 piece chicken McNuggets Happy Meal costs $7.09. 😳 For about the same price you can support this publication. Become a paid subscriber today.
In his 1963, “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr. began his remarks with a metaphor.
He characterized American democracy as a check that had not yet been cashed.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
My interview guest, Clint Smith, referred to this ‘promissory note’ in our conversation about the new project from The Atlantic—“The Unfinished Revolution.”
I asked him what he thought was “unfinished” about the American Revolution.
Smith said,
“When we think about the idea of the revolution being unfinished, I think it means that we recognize that the U.S, at its founding, was an aspirational project.
What the founders were building, and creating was, as Dr. King put it, a ‘promissory note’, where we are creating the foundation upon which we move toward the version of ourselves that we want to be.
And we’re not there yet.”
We are and will always be moving toward a “more perfect union.”
The values of democracy, freedom, and equality are ideals that still have not been fully realized.
And progress is not linear. We experience setbacks, meandering turns, and sometimes lose our way.
But unfinished does not mean impossible.
Smith helps us how history can be a light guiding us on the path toward a multiracial participatory democracy.
As King said, “We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.”
I invite you to listen to our full conversation. If it’s helpful, please share it with others online.
