We can debate about the details. Should civilian blue-collar workers be able to support their families on a single income so that one parent can stay home with the kids? Is it right to raise taxes if you want public school classrooms with 15 kids per teacher instead of 30? Regardless of where you come down in these debates, when you celebrate America today, you’re celebrating more than just the men in tights and whigs who wrote our Constitution. You’re celebrating Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry Thoreau, Emma Goldman, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Sandra Cisneros, Woody Guthrie, Dorothy Day, Frances Willard, and a whole lot of other people who were widely hated and controversial in their time for fighting to create an America worth defending. America is only as good as the people who force us to live up to our promises. That is the America for which I sing.
I Too Sing America (via azspot)