Today (Thursday) was an awesome day. My dad and I had some extra time before our conference starts this weekend and we got to do a little tour of the historic sites of Philadelphia.

Both of us have been there before, but it had been a while and our time was limited. Both of us, having both just read Team of Rivals, are also experiencing somewhat of a resurgence of patriotism that makes it more fun to see some of this stuff. There will probably be another post or two, but I want to highlight one of the things that I learned today that I didn’t know before. It concerns the Liberty Bell.

You probably know this, but in reading some of the material on the Liberty Bell I learned that it used to be called the Philadelphia State Bell. I learned that it got the name “Liberty Bell” by abolitionists – those political and religious activists that pioneered the abolition of slavery. They started calling it the “Liberty Bell” as an allusion to a slave device that kept track of slaves. It had a neck shackle or collar with a metal rod connecting to a bell that would alert the slave owners as to where their slaves were. The abolitionists used the phrase “Liberty Bell” as a sarcastic response to the hypocrisy they saw in America’s championed ideas of freedom and liberty standing alongside the reality of 4 million in slavery. That was never in any of my history books – but it should have been. Maybe it gets more air-time today or maybe I wasn’t paying attention

After reading about the politics of the mid-19th century and being exposed again to significance of slavery as a reality and issue in the formation of the country, I’m more convinced that while it’s not often in the history books, the legacy of slavery has always been there in our country and it even continues to be present as contemporary ethnic groups seek to navigate today’s world with the often unspoken realities of yesterday’s injustices.

All ethnic groups in our country have had difficult journeys, but lately I’ve grown a little more sensitive to the heritage of African Americans in this country and what that means with regard to their contemporary cultural journeys. It makes the inauguration next Tuesday all the more meaningful and I can all the more rejoice in having an African American President. My appreciation has everything to do with what this means as a landmark moment for us and future generations in terms of culture and ethnic diversity rather than what it means in terms of politics or policies. Our country needed this and it’s been long overdue.

While the Liberty Bell once was a symbol of hypocrisy to millions of Americans at points in its history, I think we can celebrate Tuesday as a day where that Bell has come a little bit closer to its stated intentions as a symbol for everyone in this country. Got to love being a part of history in the making.

The main inscription:
Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof Lev. XXV X

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