On July 5, the community gathered at Washington Gladden Social Justice Park to commemorate the country’s 250th birthday with poetry, folk music, and food. 

It was a meaningful afternoon of reflection, connection, and shared purpose. Together, we considered what civic responsibility asks of us, and how each of us can help build a more just, compassionate, and welcoming community.

Our friend Brian Pauquette shared the following poem with the crowd.

America’s Stories

In my first 25 years of life, I heard stories

Stories of trials and tribulations

Liberty and independence

Ingenuity and invention

Stories about river crossings, cherry trees,
and kites and keys

Stories of adventure, progress, and westward expansion

Stories about standing up, sitting in, and speaking out

Stories about bus rides, boycotts, bridges, and dreams

Stories about people who have monuments, museums and musicals named after them

Stories of Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, General George Patton, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stories that made me sing I’m proud to be an American for at least I know I’m free.

These were stories that fanned in me flames of patriotism, pride and prejudice.

These are America’s stories.

In the second 25 years of life, I began to hear new stories, different stories

Some I found with intention but many I heard by accident

These stories also told of trials and tribulations

Some with triumph, but many with tragedy

These were stories whose actions — at best were forgotten or omitted

And at worst were condoned or justified

Stories of ships arriving in 1619

Stories of forefathers that had not been told

Stories of the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek and the Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee

Stories of workers at Ludlow, destruction in Tulsa, protests on the farms of California and riots at Stonewall

Stories of Juneteenth, Strange Fruit, and lines drawn in neighborhoods we can still see today

Some stories break us. And yet they demand to be told.

Stories of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Fred Hampton, Matthew Shepard, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and more names than my memory can hold.

These were stories that fanned in me flames of angst, bewilderment, contemplation and discernment.

These are America’s stories

And today we stand in a park whose name memorializes a man who stood nearby and echoed the words of the ancient prophet:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

    And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

    and to walk humbly with your God.

So now, as I look ahead to my next 25 years of life, I’m listening for the stories.

The stories that say we have come so far, and yet we have so far to go.

Stories that move us beyond mere mental musings and spur us to act.

The stories that tell about community, accountability, compassion, and how we treat the most vulnerable
among us.

The stories of children that smile at their neighbor
without hesitation.

The stories of the stranger who says, “I can help.”

The stories of the politician who says, “I will lead with a sense of shared humanity.”

The stories of the college student who changes her
major and her whole plan, so that her life, liberty and pursuit of happiness becomes about our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

The stories of the teacher, who in his final years of teaching closes his state sanctioned textbook and says, “I have one more lesson to teach, one more thing to give, one more story that you must hear.”

These are the stories of the people you pass on the street.

These are the stories of the people you have yet to meet.

These are the stories of the people standing beside you right now.

These are the stories that fan in me the flames of faith, the flames of hope, and the flames of love.

And these too, are America’s stories.