Heather Cox Richardson: “We Are America”

What’s the best antidote to the MAGA claim that America was made by white Christians for white Christians? Here is her answer.

For a while now, I’ve been hinting that my team was up to something. And tonight, at last, I have an announcement.

Last August, during one of my Politics Chat webcasts, at a time when those trying to impose white nationalism, Christian nationalism, or authoritarianism on our country insisted they were embracing American values, I urged people instead to see those who care about the preservation of democracy and who have worked to expand its values as the people who truly represent America.

That idea appealed strongly, apparently, to the two young women we had recently hired to manage my social media accounts and to produce the historical videos we’ve been putting up. As we kicked around ideas for our own celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, they kept coming back to the idea from that Politics Chat: that “we…are America.”

So, to honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we decided to launch a series of one-minute videos that highlight the people, places, and events that have helped to move us toward a more perfect Union.

We designed the videos to emphasize the agency of Americans—mostly everyday Americans—to change the country. Each falls into a category that defines what it means to be an American, including community, democracy, innovation, mobility, civil rights, education, conservation, and creativity.

When we floated the plan, lots of wonderful people all over the country understood the idea immediately and jumped in to help, suggesting topics, writing scripts, offering images, narrating.

We’re launching the project tomorrow with the stories of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, narrated by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey; the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, narrated by Representative Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania; the Constitutional Convention (I narrated that one); Ruben Salazar, narrated by journalist Sylvia Salazar; Yellowstone, narrated by former senator Jon Tester of Montana; the AIDS Quilt, narrated by originator Cleve Jones; the Acadians, narrated by historian Jason Herbert; the Erie Canal, narrated by former secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg; John Peter Zenger and the First Amendment, narrated by journalist Jelani Cobb; the Charter Oak, narrated by Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut; Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, narrated by Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland; and the story of actress and dancer Rita Moreno, narrated by Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose.

For the next several weeks, we will be telling these stories and hundreds more. We hope that you will share them widely to flood social media with the real story of how Americans have always worked, often against seemingly insurmountable odds, to create a more perfect Union.

What has made America great has always been the American people.

Now, as for the past 250 years, “We Are America.”