In 1976, I was editor of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks bicentennial project. It was called the 1776 Gazette, a newspaper that printed the news of that revolutionary year one week at a time. Relying on microfilms of newspapers that were around back then and on history books, I put together each edition and had it printed and delivered to libraries around the nation.
Newspapers then didn’t print the news as such. They printed letters and announcements. The work of reporters or other neutral observers was nonexistent.
I see that today, particularly on TV “news” channels, where facts and seeking both sides of an issue have gone by the wayside.
Luckily, I do read a good newspaper every day, scan the Associated Press – the largest news-gathering organization in the world – and watch the BBC, where reporting has not gone out of style.
Advertisements that appeared in revolutionary era newspapers were heart-breaking. At a time when great men were writing documents that asserted the God-given rights of Americans, the newspapers printed ads offering slaves for sale. And worse, many of them even owned slaves.
I remember one such ad. The headline: “Raisins for sale.” The first time I saw that ad, I scratched my head and wondered out loud what it could be about. Then it dawned on me: it was about slaves.
How could any American at that time reconcile the verbiage of the Declaration of Independence with the reality of slavery?
“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,” says the Declaration unanimously passed July 4, 1776, by a Congress of the colonies’ greatest thinkers and printed in newspapers.
At the same time, the newspapers printed advertisements selling human beings, who had been kidnapped from their homes in Africa and transported shackled to the decks of ships to the colonies, where they were sold to work on farms and plantations.
During the past month or so, many Americans have taken to the streets protesting the deaths of citizens at the hands of police and vigilantes.
These protests came after more than 40 million Americans lost their jobs and were ordered to stay home for three months at the risk of killing someone. One of the phrases we all heard was “Stay Home and Save Lives.”
The combination blew the top off our nation. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to understand that a combination of psychological and financial stress and blatant and continuing criminal behavior on the part of some “police officers” will set many people off like a skyrocket.
Look, most police officers are good men and women doing their best, often under trying circumstances.
But this undercurrent of racism that goes back nearly 400 years remains in our society. It persists when we allow a minority of officers to carry an unprofessional attitude along with their badge.
And it is bolstered when we continue to see some Americans as “black” and others as “white” and still others as “Mexicans” or other “minorities.”
We are all Americans, and we share those rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
My hope for this Fourth of July – and for all of that follow – is that we can erase those lines of race and heritage that divide us. In doing that, America really can become great.
Carl Sampson is a freelance writer and editor. He lives in Stayton.
