City Council - Regular Meeting

how much more awesome you are than you think you are.

take my people with me together we are going to a brand new home far across the river can you hear freedom calling calling me to answer gonna keep on keeping on i can feel it in my bones

Good evening. I'm Reverend Mark Hughes. I'm the Executive Director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, and you've reached me again at Juxtaposition. Juxtaposition, this is a show of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. We're here at CCTV, here live, and some of you will catch us recorded. These are issues affecting black folks and black folks affecting change, or should we say transformation, because it doesn't seem that change is always good enough because it keeps changing. Before we get started on today's program, America, America 250, what to the descendants of slavery is the 250th anniversary of the United States? What to the descendants of slavery is the 250th year anniversary of the United States. We're going to talk about that today, but first this in two Tennessee National Guard soldiers assigned to the Memphis Safe Task Force fired shots during a foot pursuit in the early hours of this past Sunday morning, killing a 20-year-old. armed black man. That's what the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says here. It was Tyron Johnson, Tyron Johnson, rest in peace. The first time I told somebody this, I looked at them and I said, the National Guard killed somebody. And they looked at me and they said, well, what was the circumstances surrounding it? And I said, it was the National Guard. The National Guard killed a civilian. So that's the state of things with a maybe nearly 1,500-person deployment still in one of the blackest cities in the South. I want to shout out also Nolan Xavier Wells, a black Mississippian that came up dead in Mississippi a few days ago here. There's an investigation still underway on that, and I think Benjamin Crump is on the case there. Beloved, good evening. Good evening. I want to just seriously send out some thoughts and prayers for the families of those folks, but the broader picture is we got ourselves quite the challenge going on for us here nationally. I'm standing before you, sitting before you here. During this period of time that we refer to as the 250th year anniversary, the nation just celebrated 250 years of the Declaration of Independence and across the country we saw fireworks and flags and concerts and ceremonies and songs and speeches. Families gathering all together and children, they're looking in the sky with wonder and communities remember the courage of all of those folks who declared that a new nation could be born upon the proposition that liberty belonged to people determined to govern themselves. There's something worthy of reflection. in that anniversary. 250 years is a remarkable time span, remarkable. Few nations have endured so long while continuing to wrestle publicly with the meaning of their own founding ideals. In fact, Birthdays are not the only occasion for celebration. They are occasions for remembrance. They are occasions for gratitude and they are occasions for honesty. And honesty is the beginning of wisdom. 174 years ago, Frederick Douglass, he stood before an audience in Rochester, New York. And on the day after independence, he didn't ask questions. his famous question because he despised America. He asked the question because he believed that love of a country demanded truth more than flattery. So he understood that patriotism without honesty becomes mythology. He understood that a nation unwilling to examine itself cannot truly renew itself. Today, This is another opportunity for us to ask yet another question, my friends. The question today is what, to the descendants of slavery, is the 250th anniversary of the United States? It is a question that cannot be answered with slogans. It cannot be answered with fireworks. It can't be answered with choosing only the chapters of history that make us comfortable. It must be answered with the whole history. For the descendants of slavery, we're not strangers to American history. We're not an appendix to American history. We're not a footnote to American history. We are woven into the foundation of American history. Our ancestors planted the fields they would never own They raised buildings they would never occupy, and they created wealth they would never inherit. Yet, they also preserved families under impossible conditions. They cultivated faith in the face of despair and carried forward a hope that future generations might one day inherit a nation closer to its highest ideals than one they themselves had known. The story of the United States cannot be told truthfully. without them. Nor can it be told truthfully without acknowledging that the nation's founding contained extraordinary aspiration and profound contradiction. The Declaration proclaimed that all are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights. Those words have inspired reformers, abolitionists, suffragists, labor organizers, civil rights leaders, and freedom movements all around the whole world. Yet at the nation's birth, many who lived within the borders were denied these promises. That contradiction, it didn't erase the ideals though, and that's the good news. Neither did the ideals erase the contradiction. For two and a half centuries now, Americans have lived within the tensions between this nation's aspirations and its realities. Perhaps that tension is not a sign of the American experiment has failed. Perhaps it's the evidence that every generation, every generation inherits unfinished work. The prophet Isaiah spoke to the people who also knew the distance between worship and justice, between public ceremony and righteousness. He reminded them that a society is measured not only by the words it speaks, but by the way it treats those who bear the greatest burdens. His challenge still echoes today across all of these centuries. What kind of people are we going to become? That's the question. What kind of nation are we willing to build? And what responsibilities accompany the freedoms that we actually celebrate? Those are the questions worthy of a 250th birthday. Because anniversaries are not merely about remembering where we began. They're about asking whether we have become the people we once hoped to be. So happy birthday. And we'll continue with this conversation in a minute. I want to bring your attention to the block party that happened over on the Juneteenth. You could take a look at this slide just to remind you for those who came. What a tremendous outpouring. to the block party. Lots of folks came. We really had a great time. It was a wonderful opportunity to get a chance to meet the neighbors around and just have a great time. So thanks for all those who came. And I'll just also take this moment to remind you So save the date, because First African Landing Day is coming up. First African Landing Day, this is our eighth consecutive year. This is a nod to the 1619 Project. And it's also acknowledging the 400-year African American History Commission, former commission. So press on is the theme this year. It's the August the 22nd. It will be at Intervale Center from 12 to 5 p.m., the same There will be dancing, keynote speakers, speakers. There will be music and just all types of activities for the youth. Don't forget First African Landing Day. Thank you. Now, there is a story Americans often tell themselves. It's the story of founders and also the framers. of declarations and also constitutions, of liberty born in Philadelphia and carried westward across the continent. It's a beautiful story, but it's not the whole story. There is another story, a story that runs beside it, not contradicts it, but it runs beside it. Sometimes it runs kind of beneath it. Yeah, sometimes it does kind of run against it. It's a story of people who are not invited to write the first chapter, yet they spent the next 250 years helping to write nearly every chapter that followed. It's a story of the descendants of slavery. Let me say something that should be, this shouldn't be controversial, though it's often forgotten, and that is the descendants of slavery are not guests to the American story. were foundational Americans. Before there was an American economy, there was an enslaved labor. Before cotton became the engine of the global commerce, there were black hands planting, harvesting, and processing it. And before Wall Street became a symbol Before it became a symbol of American finance, banks financed plantations, they insured enslaved people as property, and they built fortunes from human bondage. The wealth of this nation did not emerge from the ideas alone. It emerged from labor. It emerged from land, from invention, and from millions of lives that were never permitted to enjoy the freedom they helped to create. Yet even that does not tell the whole story. Because if slavery helped build America's wealth, black struggle helped build America's democracy. The founders gave the nation extraordinary language. The descendants of slavery demanded that America began living by it. Every generation inherited a republic. Every generation of African Americans insisted that it become a democracy. That is a different claim. A republic can exist while excluding whole classes of people. A democracy cannot flourish if citizenships belong to only some. And so the descendants of slavery became some of the nation's greatest democratic teachers. When enslaved men and women fled plantations during the Civil War, they didn't more than seek freedom. They transformed the purpose of the war itself. They forced the nation to confront a question it had postponed since its founding. Could a country dedicated to liberty remain dedicated to slavery? History answered that question. Not easily. not peacefully, not even decisively. Then came Reconstruction. For a brief, remarkable moment, America caught a glimpse of what it might become. Formerly enslaved people, they actually voted. They held office. They founded schools. They built churches and established businesses, served in legislatures, and helped rewrite state constitutions. Participated in public life as citizens rather than property. It was imperfect, of course. It was contested, obviously. But it was real. And perhaps that's why it provoked such a fierce resistance. Because every expansion of democracy requires those who already possess power to imagine sharing it. History tells us that this has never come easy. Yet from Reconstruction emerged three constitutional amendments that forever changed the meaning of American citizenship. The 13th abolished slavery. The 14th established birthright citizenship and equal protection under the law. And the 15th declared that race could not be used to deny voting rights. These were not merely legal amendments, they were moral amendments. They represented an effort, unfinished though it was, to bring the Constitution closer to the promises of democracy. closer to the promises of the Declaration. That work would continue. Generations later, black teachers would insist upon equal education. Black veterans would return from wars abroad asking why democracy flourished overseas but remained incomplete at home. Students would sit in at lunch counters, and families would march across bridges. Churches would become organizing centers. Communities would endure jail, violence, intimidation, and loss, not to create a new America, but to call America back to its own highest principles. This is one of the great ironies of our national history. Those who were most often denied the full benefits of democracy became among the most faithful custodians. Again and again and again, descendants of slavery called the nation to become what it claimed to be. They challenged hypocrisy, not because they rejected American ideals, but because they believed those ideas belonged to everyone. Frederick Douglass believed it. Harriet Tubman believed it. Ida B. Wells believed it. Fannie Lou Hamer believed it. John Lewis believed it. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed it. Not that America had already achieved justice, but that justice remained possible. Their patriotism was not measured by silence. It was measured by courage. They loved this country enough to tell the truth. Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts descendants of slavery have given to the United States. Not simply labor, not simply culture, not simply resilience, but moral clarity. A willingness to ask difficult questions when easier answers would have been more comfortable. A willingness to insist that freedom means little unless it belongs to all of us. A willingness to remind each generation that democracy is not inherited once and for all. It must be renewed, protected, expanded, and sometimes reclaimed. That may be the deepest meaning of the black American experience. Not simply surviving exclusion, but continually enlarging the circle of belonging. Not simply demanding rights for ourselves, but helping redefine citizenship for this entire nation. And so, as we stand at the 250th anniversary of the United States, perhaps we should tell the story differently. Perhaps the descendants of slavery should not be remembered as people waiting outside the American promise. Perhaps we should be remembered as people who repeatedly helped America understand the meaning of that promise. Not because the work is finished, not because every generation has inherited, but because every generation has inherited the responsibility to carry it further. That's our history. And whether America fully recognizes it or not, it is a part of America's inheritance as well. I want to take you, before we finish up, just take you here for a bit and talk a little bit about Race of Justice. That's going to be next Thursday for those who are watching. That is the third Thursday of every month at 6 p.m. A fusion movement rooted in civil rights and equal protection, human rights and nonviolence, Our beloved community, we're responding to what we're seeing as developing a situation where we're seeing more and more of our rights are being upended. So what we want to do is we want to figure out how to take those types of stand. Raise up justice. You might want to come and check that out. Community resilience, education, and also just doing the work. And doing the work, when we talk about doing the work, that involves stand up, speak out. And this is Shield Vermont, and that would be more about the Equal Protection Constitutional Amendment that's on the ballot. Just want to tell folks a little bit about that. Thank you for that slide. If the story ended there, where I just left you, this would be a very different conversation. If every expansion of democracy had been met with lasting progress, perhaps the 250th anniversary would simply just be a celebration. But that has never been the rhythm of American history. The rhythm of American history has been more complicated. It's been more kind of like freedom. resistance, progress, backlash, hope, retrenchment, expansion, reaction, again and again and again and again. It's almost as though this nation cannot move toward a broader democracy without awakening forces determined to narrow it once more. History bears witness of what I'm saying here. After emancipation came the black codes. After reconstruction came redemption. Not redemption like in a biblical sense or anything like that, but violent restoration of white political rule across the South. After black citizenship came lynching. After black voting came the poll taxes, literacy tests. intimidation, terror. After Brown versus the Board of Education came massive resistance. After the Civil Rights Movement came the new methods of preserving old inequalities. The language changed. The mechanisms changed. But the struggle continued. History reminds us that democracy is not self-sustaining. It's not inherited the way we inherit family photographs. It's cultivated. It's protected. It's renewed, and when it's neglected, it can erode, not always dramatically, sometimes gradually, sometimes quietly, sometimes beneath the surface, until one day a generation discovers that protections it assumed permanent have become uncertain. That is one of the enduring lessons of the American experiment. No generation gets to retire from the work of democracy. Every generation receives its unfinished work. Every generation must decide whether it will leave it stronger or weaker for those who come after it. That truth is not unique to black Americans. It belongs to every citizen. But descendants of slavery have experienced that unfinished nature of democracy in especially profound ways. Our history has taught us that rights declared are not always rights secured. That laws passed are not always laws faithfully enforced. That victories won still require vigilant stewardship. And yet there is another lesson our history teaches us. The answer to disappointment is not despair. The answer to betrayal is not abandonment. And the answer to imperfection is not cynicism. It is responsibility. Frederick Douglass understood this. So did Harriet Tubman. So did Ella Baker. So did Bernard Rustin and John Lewis. They understood that democracy is less a possession than a practice. It's something we do. It's something we renew. It's something we hand to one another. The Hebrew prophets understood this long before American republic existed. Isaiah looked upon the people who had become comfortable with the ceremony while neglecting justice. They knew how to worship, they knew how to celebrate, they knew how to remember, but they had forgotten how to repair. And Isaiah spoke the words that still echo to every generation. You shall be called repairers of the breach. Repairers. not merely admirers, not merely commentators, repairers. A breach is not simply a crack in the wall. It's a place where something that once held something together has come apart. A place where trust has been fractured, where a covenant has been weakened, where relationship has been broken. The work of repair is not to pretend the breach doesn't exist. Nor is it to stare endlessly at the damage. The work of repair is to begin rebuilding. Patiently, faithfully, together. Perhaps that is the calling before America at 250 years. Not to declare ourselves complete, but to acknowledge where the breach remains, the breach between principle and practice, the breach between liberty proclaimed and liberty experienced, the breach between equal citizenship, promise, and equal opportunity realized, the breach between remembering our history and learning from it. Anniversaries invite gratitude, but they also invite examination. A family celebrating their 250th birthday would not dishonor its ancestors by telling the truth about its hardships. It would honor them because love is not diminished by honesty. It is deepened by it. So too with nations. The most mature patriotism is not the refusal to acknowledge failure. It is the confidence that truth strengthens a people more than the myth ever can. As we stand at this remarkable milestone, perhaps the question is not whether America has fulfilled all of its promises. No nation has fulfilled all of its promises. The question is whether we still possess the moral imagination to continue pursuing them, whether we still believe that liberty is expansive rather than exclusive, whether we still understand that the measure of democracy is found not only in its celebrations, but in its willingness to hear the voices that remind it where work remains unfinished. The descendants of slavery know something about unfinished work. We inherited unfinished freedom. We inherited unfinished citizenship. We inherited unfinished equality. We inherited it. But we also inherited unfinished hope. Hope that has endured through bondage and emancipation, through reconstruction and Jim Crow, through exclusion and inclusion, through triumph and disappointment. Hope not because history guarantees progress, but because every generation is given another opportunity to choose. And perhaps that is what makes this anniversary so significant. 250 years is not simply a measure of how long this nation has existed. It's a measure of how many opportunities Americans have had and continue to have to enlarge the meaning of freedom. The question before us is not whether the work is finished. The question is whether we are willing to continue it. For if democracy is indeed an unfinished republic, then its future will not be determined by anniversaries. It will be determined by the character, the courage, the conscience of those who inherit it. And that inheritance now belongs to us. Happy birthday, Marika250. It's been Reverend Mark Hughes' juxtaposition, issues affecting black folks, black folks affecting change. Good night, folks.

take my people with me together we are going to a brand new home far across the river can you hear freedom calling calling me to answer gonna keep on keeping on i can feel it in my