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[The following essay was written by Marin Raniere, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School Class of 2027. The essay is one of three winning submissions to the LSRHS 250th Essay Contest.]
Has living near historical sites in Massachusetts impacted me? Well, to be honest, I had not given it much thought until now. What I do know is this: I have felt passionate about equality, freedom, and justice ever since I was young. In second grade, I memorized all of the presidents and would recite them to show off. In school, when my peers said they wanted to grow up to be firefighters or ballerinas, I boldly held my head high and said that I wanted to be President of the United States. Even today, I long to make an impact on the world and advocate for what I believe in. I have recently begun to realize how much being surrounded by this rich history at every turn has changed my life. I have passed by the Wayside Inn, once a meeting place for patriots and minutemen, while driving to my family’s favorite breakfast spot. I have stood where the first shots of the American Revolution once rang out. I have walked down streets where patriots once bravely fought. This awareness of and immersion in American history has provided me with such a profound understanding of the principles in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the same principles that men fought the American Revolution upon. Here is where they were the first to truly rebel and protest. The Sons of Liberty, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and Paul Revere’s midnight ride are just a few of many examples of this revolutionary opposition that came from Massachusetts. Because this was the first place where people were showing resistance to the British, the values they were fighting for carry such truth and sincerity. They did not believe that this was going to be a battle easily won, yet they still fought it.
I believe all of these people were fighting for two underlying principles – both that speak to me very much: freedom and justice. Freedom and justice are inextricably linked. To have one, you need to have the other. The Sons of Liberty who rebelled against the Stamp Act wanted freedom from taxation and the justice of representation. The patriots in the Boston Massacre wanted freedom from British authorities and the justice of self-governance. The two most influential documents of our early nation, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have their foundations in these same principles. The writers of the Declaration wanted the colonies to achieve the freedom they deserved and King George III to get justice for all the crimes he committed against them. Those men at the Constitutional Convention wanted to set up a government free from the British where freedom and justice were promises to be upheld. In my eyes, freedom and justice are the two promises that people continually fought for throughout our nation’s history.
Despite the passion of these hard-won promises, they have been grossly unfulfilled. They were unfulfilled in 1776 and are still unfulfilled today. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration, “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” (“Declaration of Independence: A Transcription”). This promise of freedom and justice that the founding fathers claimed to be obvious has been unfulfilled since that ink touched the page. Jefferson owned more than 600 slaves in his lifetime and dared to talk about the equality of man when he personally owned, bought, and sold human beings as property (“Slavery at Monticello FAQs”). This promise has in fact always had exceptions – African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, women, the LGBTQ+ community. It took 34,152 days after the Declaration was signed for African Americans to have the right to vote, and 52,610 days for women to have that right. It took 71,760 days for women to have the right to abortion, which is no longer guaranteed today. It took 87,225 days for gay people to have the right to same-sex marriage. These moments in history were not the end of injustice but turning points in a long struggle for these disenfranchised groups. For example, even after African Americans gained the right to vote, multiple barriers kept them from the voting booths; the poll tax, the grandfather clause, and the actions of the Ku Klux Klan are just a few examples. To this day, freedom and justice are still not guaranteed. For example, gerrymandering, or the practice of manipulating electoral boundaries to favor one racial group, often disenfranchises racial minorities and still happens today. A promise for freedom and justice plagued with the acceptance of sexism, racism, anti-semitism, nativism, and homophobia is a broken one.
The occurrence of this anniversary has given me a chance to reflect and realize the impact that living here has had on me. It has inspired me to stand up for what I believe in and to reflect not only on the past but also on the future. With each mention of freedom and justice, I consider the current injustices and roadblocks to freedom in our society and how I can work to solve them. The activism of people and their voice is what fulfills our nation’s promises little by little. Injustice is not changed and history is not made until people step up and speak up. Through your actions, big or small, you impact the future and solicit the change you want to see in the world. As the 250th anniversary of our nation approaches, we as individuals need to reflect. We need to realize that we live in a nowhere near “perfect Union” (“The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription”) and work diligently to remedy the imperfections. Despite the lack of fulfillment of these values, they do point us in the right direction. They are our North Star. Through our actions we can work to fulfill these promises with the same passion and idealism as the patriots did before us.
