America’s Other Birthday Party
The official celebration reflects one vision of America. Many of us hold a different one.
This is the third in a three-part series. Part one is here. Part two is here.
I will be honest with you. When I think about the celebrations planned for this summer, my first instinct is to find a quiet forest somewhere and let July 4 pass without me. Not because I do not love this country. Particularly after the UFC Fight on the White House Lawn, the celebration being offered does not feel like mine.
If you feel the same way, you are not alone and are not being unpatriotic.
Two Visions of America
The Declaration of Independence says that all people are created equal and possess the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Constitution calls on us to form a more perfect union and promote the general welfare. Those are not small promises. They are the founding argument of this country, and they have never been fully kept.
For 250 years, two competing visions of what those words mean have been in direct conflict. The first holds that the promise was made for a select group: property-owning white men, specifically, and that the order they established is the natural and correct one. The second holds that the promise belongs to everyone, that the systematic exclusion of Black and brown people, of women, of the poor, from political and economic life has always been a betrayal of the founding ideal, and that the work of America is to close that gap.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson, writing on May 17, argued that the Trump administration is attempting to turn America’s story away from its Enlightenment foundations of natural rights, equality, and self-government, and toward a vision that asks Americans to accept that some people are better than others and to defer to their leaders. That is the vision animating the official celebration. The estrangement many Americans feel from this anniversary stems from this.
What the Official Celebration Is Erasing
The administration has spent the past year removing slavery exhibits from national parks and pressuring the Smithsonian to submit its anniversary programming for government review. A federal judge ordered one exhibit restored at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia after the administration removed displays about the enslaved people George Washington kept while living there; the administration said it would appeal. National Park Service records show the review extends to the Emmett Till monument in Mississippi, where staff were asked to consider removing an entire exhibit about his murder.
On May 17, on the National Mall, the official anniversary celebration held its first major event. Rededicate 250 was a daylong Christian worship service, with cabinet members participating, organized by Freedom 250 as a presidential anniversary event. All but one speaker was Christian. Its stated purpose was to rededicate America as “One Nation Under God,” with the entire 250-year history framed as evidence of God’s providence. Americans United for Separation of Church and State described it as advancing Christian nationalism rather than religious freedom. The founders, who were explicit about the separation of church and state, are not available to comment.
The Truer, Harder, More Hopeful Story
Richardson has also written that one of the hallmarks of a strongman’s rise is the attempt to rewrite history. The history being erased here is not comfortable. It is honest, and honesty is ultimately more hopeful than the version being offered in its place.
The Declaration’s promise of equality was written by men who enslaved other people and excluded women, Black and brown Americans, and the landless from political life entirely. What the last 250 years represent is not the fulfillment of that promise. It is the struggle toward it, driven by those who were excluded and by the allies who joined them: abolitionists, labor organizers, suffragists, civil rights leaders, and ordinary people who showed up when it mattered.
That struggle has never moved in a straight line. After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote and sent Black representatives to Congress. Within a decade, Supreme Court rulings had gutted federal enforcement and southern states began dismantling those gains through poll taxes, literacy tests, and violence. In 1875, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the 14th Amendment did not grant women the right to vote. It took 45 more years and a new constitutional amendment to reverse it. The current moment is not the first time the promise of America has faced serious opposition. It has not been the last word before, and there is no reason to believe it is now.
The Other Celebration
There are people and institutions working right now to tell the truer story. The Smithsonian’s “Our Shared Future: 250,” spanning all 21 of its museums, is committed to contemplating the consequences of American history alongside its achievements. The White House has pressured the Smithsonian to submit its programming for review and threatened funding cuts if exhibits were deemed divisive. The Smithsonian has complied with document requests. What remains on offer, including exhibits at the National Museum of African American History and the National Museum of the American Indian, still reflects a broader and more honest story than the official celebration. Visit si.edu/250 and draw your own conclusions. The congressional commission America250 is still operating its civic programming and oral history projects at america250.org. The New York Times has also compiled a useful guide to anniversary events across the country worth reading alongside these resources.
For those who want to go deeper, six resources worth your time:
Heather Cox Richardson’s “250 to 250: We Are America” is a free series of one-minute videos featuring the people, places, and events that have moved the country toward its founding promise. Start here.
Eddie Glaude Jr.’s America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries is the most direct scholarly treatment of this post’s argument: that the struggle of Black Americans is the true measure of democratic progress, and that every national anniversary has papered over that truth.
Melissa Murray’s new book makes the Constitution itself accessible to ordinary readers, restoring it to the people it was written to serve.
Ben Rhodes’ All We Say, published May 26, traces 250 years through 15 speeches, framing the nation as divided between two stories: one of inheritance and exclusion, the other of equality and belonging.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s “Reckon, Reimagine, Refound” initiative centers the Black freedom struggle in the anniversary and calls for a multiracial democracy where power is shared and dignity is sacred.
Ms. Magazine’s “Feminist 250” covers America’s founding, lessons learned and future.
None of these resolve what is happening. They are evidence that the America many of us believe in is still showing up.
Closing
The founders left us a challenge: to make real the promise they could not keep themselves. That work is not finished. Celebrate the 4th of July in a way that is consistent with your values.
Sources
1. Heather Cox Richardson on Rededicate 250: Letters from an American, May 17, 2026
2. Richardson on strongmen and rewriting history: Letters from an American, May 17, 2026
3. Richardson’s “250 to 250: We Are America” video series: Letters from an American, May 24, 2026
4. Slavery exhibit removed and restored, administration appeal: The Hill, Trump Aims to Change Black History at National Sites
5. NPS database, Emmett Till monument review: Washington Post via Rep. Huffman, Confidential Database Reveals Which Items NPS Thinks May ‘Disparage’ America
6. Rededicate 250, Christian nationalist framing, cabinet participation: NPR, Trump and Administration Officials Address Christian Gathering on National Mall
7. Smithsonian under pressure, Our Shared Future: 250: Hyperallergic, Trump Wants ‘American Exceptionalism’ at the Smithsonian. Will He Get It?
8. Smithsonian Our Shared Future: 250 programming: si.edu/250
9. Eddie Glaude Jr., America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries: Penguin Random House
10. Minor v. Happersett, 1875: Constitution Center, On This Day, Supreme Court Refuses Women Right to Vote
11. NAACP LDF Reckon Reimagine Refound: naacpldf.org
12. America250: america250.org
13. New York Times anniversary travel guide: America’s 250th Anniversary: Where to Celebrate This Summer