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| Flag on Whites Bridge. 5/14/22 |
It was June 14, 1777 when the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution declaring the young nation's colors should be, "13 stripes, alternate red and white," and that the union by 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."
President Woodrow Wilson made Flag Day an official national observance in 1916.
We honor the flag by reciting the pledge and singing the anthem. It represents the ideals and values of the United States of America. Ideals and values our country hasn't upheld on a consistent basis or practice equally.
In the preamble to the Declaration of Independence it reads: "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, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The forefathers may have thought the truths were self-evident because the laudatory goals only applied to white men who owned property and certainly didn't apply to women are people who didn't look like they did.
No one lives up to the dream of treating everyone equally and providing opportunities. It's an impossibility in a broken world. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
The strength of the flag is that it represents the blood of those who shed it fighting for their country as well as the lives lost who didn't receive those "evident and unalienable" rights. The flag and the nation it symbolizes is strong enough to observe and listen to dissenting voices and protestors who march for the high standard of all getting to pursue liberty, life, and happiness.
The goal is elusive; our effort to get there shouldn't wane because the journey is hard... which seems like a great way to fly the flag.
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