Pathways to Democracy

Historical Memories and The Reinvention of American Democracy

• DOUG GARNAR –

I ride my bike almost daily and one of my treks takes me to the Chenango Valley cemetery where thousands are buried. Tombstones and their epitaphs are but the one grain of sand in the memories of those buried here. Civil War, WW I and WW II vets are buried in their own sections. You can also see the graves of those, including children, who died in the Great Influenza of 1918-1919 and, more recently, the current COVID-19 pandemic. Recently I observed a person sitting in a new section of the cemetery looking at a very recent tombstone. The memories of those now past still shape and inform the living. 

I have selected quotes (memories of people past) from seven individuals and a folk music group who I believe speak to us today as we wrestle with a democracy in turmoil. Other than President Eisenhower and Peter, Paul and Mary, most are not found in history books most might have read in K-12. This group is but a tip of the iceberg of our historical memory bank and I would encourage readers to think of others.

Frederick Douglass (1817-1885)—a former escaped slave and black abolitionist who became a prominent African-American voice of the 19th century.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. (Rochester, NY, July 5,1852)

Chief Joseph (1840-1904)—leader of the Nez Perce.

All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the Mother of All people, and all people have equal rights to live upon it.

Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961)—known as the “10th Supreme Court Justice” since William Howard Taft prevented him from being appointed (due to Hand’s support of Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 election).

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.

Dorothy Day (1891-1980)—a Bohemian radical activist who became the leader of a Catholic social gospel movement.

People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)—a five star Army General and 34th President of the US.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in an arms race is not just spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists and the hopes of its children  (Speech, April 1953)

In the counsels of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted power, whether sought or unsought by the military industrial complex.  The potential for the disastrous rise of misguided power exists and will persist. –Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell Address to the nation.

Shirley Chisholm (1924-80)—first African-American woman elected to Congress and the first to run for President.

Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.

You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering, and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.

Greta Thunberg (teenager, born in 2003)—A climate activist who has challenged the powers to be beginning in 2018 by creating a movement, “Fridays for the Future” also called School Strike for Climate.

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules.  Because the rules have to be changed.

Humanity is at a crossroads. We must decide which path we want to take. How do we want future living conditions for all living species to be like?

Peter, Paul and Mary—folk song group 

Listen to the song “Don’t Laugh at me,” 1999

Some of the common denominators in these voices include: a respect for diversity on multiple levels; recognizing the need to hear voices that one does not normally hear or care to hear; the interconnectedness of all life; the importance of serving others; the dangers of uncontrolled power; finally, that the future whether it be a baby, a butterfly, bees—all life —is in the final analysis our responsibility. Democracy on its best days is process for solving problems but is also guided by a set norms and values found in our great faith traditions, human reason, and science. 1

Questions or observations about this column may be sent to
Doug Garnar at garnardc@sunybroome.edu