During last week’s Fourth of July festivities, it occurred to me that the celebration of our nation’s founding commemorates a political act. We could reasonably date the founding of the United States to the battle of Lexington and Concord or the battle of Saratoga or the battle of Yorktown. It’s true America was born in a clash of arms and shedding of blood.
There are many people today, some of them the governor of Alaska for the next two weeks, who spit the word “Congress” out of their mouths as if it was a piece of burnt toast. They should remember that the first words of the Declaration of Independence are “In Congress, July 4, 1776.”
That’s right, a bunch of guys sitting around in a room, talking, but talking on behalf of people ranged up and down the east coast. As the document says, governments derive their just powers from consent of the governed. (And to be honest, in those days “the governed” was defined as white men who owned property.)
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Call Me Charley
I must have been in fifth or sixth grade when we were assigned to read “Call Me Charley,” by Jesse Jackson. Not that Jesse Jackson, but Mr. Jackson the author was an African American and “Call Me Charley” is about an African American youth trying to fit into a white community.
Mr. Jackson said he didn’t write the book to create teachable moments about race relations. He wrote it, he said, to reflect his life experiences because he hadn’t seen books about people like him.
Regardless of his intentions, the book was widely read in white suburban schools in the late Civil Rights Era when I grew up.
It’s been almost 40 years since I read “Call Me Charley,” but I remember (or think I remember) it pretty well. Charley is a friendly, mild-mannered African American teen who has just moved with his family to a white suburb. Charley is eager to make new friends but most of the white kids and adults have problems with him being who he is.
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