Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in the summer of 1776 in a building two blocks from Independence Hall. On the night of June 25 of this year — almost 250 years later, to the day — I will stand on the stage of the Academy of Music, less than a mile from that building, and ask the question that has animated The Philadelphia Citizen since it was founded: What does the promise made in this city, of this country, actually demand of us?
The event, We The People: America 250 — A Country at a Crossroads, will also feature MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow and Jen Psaki along with PA Governor Josh Shapiro and constitutional legal expert Sherrilyn Ifill, in conversation about the most pressing issues facing our democracy at this pivotal moment.
As a Citizen board member, I take to heart The Citizen’s pledge:
I will stand while others sit.
I will speak when there is silence.
I will read.
I will act.
I will vote.
Those are not passive commitments. They are a description of citizenship as a daily practice — the same practice that has been tested, broken, rebuilt and tested again across 250 years of American history.
That history did not happen in the chambers of power. It happened in the streets and the factories and the courtrooms and the barracks and the bars. It happened because ordinary people — most of whose names we have forgotten, some of whose names we’ve never known— did the one thing available to them in the moment they were in.
A soldier wrote a letter.
A woman stood up in a room full of men and spoke in Yiddish.
A teenager held up a phone on a sidewalk as a man’s life was snuffed out by an agent of the state.
Small acts of courage. That changed everything.
Philadelphia is where the most ambitious and expansive experiment in participatory citizenship began.
Not perfectly. Not even close to perfectly. The contradiction at the heart of the Declaration was present from the first moment, in the room where it was written at the corner of 7th and Market streets, where an enslaved man catered to Thomas Jefferson’s needs as he wrote one of the most important yet contradictory documents in the history of the world.
The experiment was flawed, but revolutionary. It was at once racist and misogynistic and yet deeply aspirational in a way the world had not yet seen.
And it began here. And on June 25, 250 years later, it feels important to gather in this city and ask honestly — together, out loud, in a room full of people who care: Where are we? What have we done with the promise?
And what do we still owe each other? Join me on June 25 not to watch, but to remember what it feels like to be in a room full of people who show up.
That is, after all, what citizens do.
June 25 at 7pm at The Academy of Music, 250 S. Broad Street, $131 to $216. Every ticket includes an offer for one year of MS NOW’s first-of-its-kind membership launching later this summer. Tickets here.
Ali Velshi, a Citizen board member, is an MS NOW anchor, award-winning journalist and serves as the network’s chief data reporter. Beginning on Monday, June 15, Velshi will anchor The 11th Hour with Ali Velshi, airing weekdays at 11pm on MS NOW.
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