One hundred thirty-three years ago on June 17, 1885, the pieces of the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor. The gift from the people of France to the people of the United States of America. She was named"Liberty Enlightening the World" by her creator, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi. At her dedication ceremony on October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland said, "We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home." Yes, Liberty had made her home here in the United States just twenty years after the end of a civil war that nearly destroyed our country. Just twenty years after the assassination of President Lincoln. Just twenty-three years after President Lincoln called on his fellow Americans to join with him to ensure "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
She also became know as the "Mother of Exiles." For immigrants sailing into New York harbor, she stood, torch lit, guiding them to a new land. She held their hopes and dreams just as surely as she held her torch. She held the promise of liberty and freedom just as surely as she held the tablet inscribed July 4, 1776. The broken chains at her feet echoed the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence that all are created equal and Abraham Lincoln's call at Gettysburg for "a new birth of freedom." She gave light and form to this illusive concept of liberty and freedom.
One hundred thirty-three years and one day later, on June 18, 2018, we must ask ourselves, is it time to extinguish Lady Liberty's torch? If she could, Lady Liberty would extinguish the flame with her own tears as she weeps for the children being separated from their parents. What is happening on the Southern border of the United States is inhumane, unconscionable and American. We cannot continue to say "this is not who we are" because this is exactly who we are. We are a country who declared independence from Great Britain with the words "all men are created equal" while enslaving a group of people based on the color of their skin. We are a country who created a new form of government "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." But still kept a group of people enslaved because of the color of their skin and took their children from them to sell to the highest bidder.
We are a country who called a group of people savages, then forced them off their lands and on to reservations because of the color of their skin. We are a country who imprisoned a group of people in concentration camps because of their ethnicity. We are country whose people have committed horrendous atrocities to others just because of the color of their skin or their ethnicity. That is our legacy. It is shameful, but it is one we must own and accept as part of our nation's past. So we must stop saying "this is not who are." We can only say "this is not who we will be." And say it we must or we shall lose any hope we have of ever becoming that "more perfect Union."
