When Thomas Jefferson wrote, and Benjamin Franklin helped refine, the Declaration of Independence, they gave America one of its most enduring aspirations: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
As a Black American, I've always understood that sentence as a promise more than a fact.
For my ancestors, equality wasn't self-evident. They were enslaved when those words were written. For generations after emancipation, equality remained out of reach through Jim Crow, racial terror, legalized segregation, redlining, voter suppression and countless other barriers that denied Black Americans the full rights of citizenship.
That is one of the remarkable contradictions of Black history in America. We have repeatedly fought to make the nation live up to its own ideals, even when those ideals were not extended to us.
Today, 250 years after the Declaration was signed, I hear people argue that Black Americans are asking for too much. That efforts to address inequality amount to "reverse discrimination." Some even suggest that what Black Americans really want is revenge.
Still often, this current administration in Washington and in Florida and else where seem to be working overtime to erase the gains made over the past 50 years, in education and voting and civil rights. They are even trying to whitewash history by in our schools and public national museums.
As activist Kimberly Jones memorably said, Black people aren't looking for revenge; we're looking for equality.
Consider the record. Black Americans endured slavery, lynchings, race massacres, segregation, exclusion from economic opportunity and unequal treatment under the law. Time after time, violence was inflicted upon us. Yet our collective response has overwhelmingly been to organize, march, vote, litigate, educate and build—not retaliate.
Yes, Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 stands as one of history's most famous exceptions. But it is remembered precisely because it was exceptional. Against nearly 250 years of racial violence directed at Black Americans, there is no comparable history of Black America seeking collective vengeance.
Instead, generation after generation has demanded something far simpler.
Treat us equally.
Judge us equally.
Protect us equally.
Give our children the same opportunities you want for yours.
That has always been the goal.
If equality feels like oppression, perhaps what is really being lost is unearned advantage.
As America celebrates 250 years of independence, I hope we spend less time congratulating ourselves for the ideals we wrote down and spending more time working to fulfill them.
The Declaration wasn't meant to be a historical artifact. It was meant to be a national standard.
For 250 years, Black Americans have repeatedly asked this country to honor that standard. We have marched for it. Bled for it. Voted for it. Died for it. Believed in it, even when America did not always believe in us.
And over the next 250 years, we'll continue to demand what should have been self-evident from the beginning: equal opportunity, equal justice and equal treatment under the law.
Some Americans will continue to call those demands "reverse discrimination."
But they aren't.
They're called equality.
And we're still waiting for America to make good on its promise.