As a kid, I loved the Fourth of July. The family picnic, swimming in the pond all day, and watching the fireworks at Rocky Point. It was pure summer magic. 

My dad, ever the unconventional strategist, would always park far away from the crowds so we could make a clean getaway when the show ended. This meant we never saw the fireworks from prime seating. Instead, we viewed the explosions of color through a tangle of trees and rooftops.  Still, it was perfect. My brother and I would climb onto the hood of the car, wave sparklers like mini light sabers, and watch the sky light up in between branches. From our distance, the bangs were muffled like firecrackers, and the view was partial, but the joy was whole.

 Exactly what are we celebrating on the 4th of July? It is kind of a birthday bash for our nation, a celebration of when the original 13 colonies, of which Rhode Island was one, declared their independence from Britain and became our own nation. The years of the British taxing and ruling us wore us down. The Tea Act of 1773 allowed the British East India Company to sell tea directly to the colonies and to charge a tax, which the colonists saw as a sneaky way for Britain to get them to accept Parliament’s right to tax them. The colonists basically said, “We are certainly not paying your tea tax, King George!” 

A group of about 100 men, led by Samuel Adams, secretly gathered. Disguised in loose robes and face paint, they boarded the ships Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver. They tossed all the tea into the harbor — over 90,000 pounds worth (worth about $1.7 million today). Of course, the Boston Tea Party was not really about tea. It was about freedom, epresentation, and giving the British Empire a strong “No, thanks!” 

The British were furious, and passed laws to punish the colonists, including taking away their right to self-govern, and forced them to house and feed an increased number of British soldiers.  Instead of scaring the colonies into submission, these laws united them in their defiance, igniting a rebellion that culminated in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

 Ironically, the values expressed that people are born with rights.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” to include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It means that rights are inherent. At its core, this phrase means that no one is born “better” or “more important” than anyone else. Seriously?  NO ONE is better or more important.  Unless they were female, indigenous, people of color or a person with disability, the list goes on. So, only rich, white men were created equal?

When is society going to embrace the belief that everyone is born equal?

 A long time ago, when I worked as a social worker for infants who were blind, I met a mother whose baby had been born with anencephaly, a condition in which critical parts of the brain, including the cerebrum and cerebellum, are missing. Medically, there was no hope. The baby had no awareness, no response, no developmental potential as we typically understand it. And yet he lived for more than a year.

This mother cared for him with unwavering tenderness. She bathed him, fed him, cradled him. She brought him to mom-and-baby groups and sat beside the other mothers, joining in their conversations about diapers and milestones, even though her son would never reach those milestones.  She did not deny his condition, but if he was breathing, she believed his life had meaning. In that quiet, faithful care, she honored the truth that every person, no matter how small, how fragile, or how forgotten by the world, has value.

This Fourth of July, let us not only celebrate the founding of a nation, but renew the call to live out its highest ideals: To love freely, value every life, and build a community where all are truly created equal.