may/june 2026 Edition
The 250th: Reflections on the American Promise
The idea behind the American nation can be boiled down to 56 words that have inspired men to war, those yearning to be free to our shores, and spread independence around the world. When Gen. George Washington’s troops heard them for the first time, they tore down a 15-foot, four-ton statue of King George III, lopped off his head and crown, and melted his body into 42,088 musket balls to use against the British.
The second sentence of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence unleashed a pentup desire to be free from an overbearing government, class and gender strictures, and enslavement. It harnessed the natural craving to control one’s life, if not destiny. But between the promising words and reality lay a glaring contradiction - slavery - the ever present economic engine that defied morality and the very argument the colonists were trying to make. All of the colonies practiced enslavement and more than 2/3rds of those who committed their names to the parchment were themselves enslavers.
At the time, English abolitionist Thomas Day pointed this out, “If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot signing resolutions of Independency with one hand and with the other brandishing a whip over his afrighted slaves.”
While true, to orchestrate total liberation would amount to a revolution that would threaten wealth and the patriarchy the American society had built itself upon. Instead, slavery became the glue that held the colonies together long enough to throw off the Crown and then some. Still, the contradiction was glaring.
Abraham Lincoln, who harnessed the power in that sentence in his 1863 speech on the battlefield in Gettysburg, mused that the truth Thomas Jefferson introduced wasn’t bound by time, adding,“The assertion that ‘all men are created equal, “was of no practical use in affecting our separation from Great Britain, and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use,” according to Historian Joseph J. Ellis’ book, The Great Contradiction.
The single sentence first united then divided America.
The Cause
Before the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was written, colonists united behind “The Cause” in support of Massachusetts whose inhabitants were suffering under Britain’s Coercive Acts and martial law. “The Cause” chafed against any institution or authority that forced itself upon the people.
“Once that way of thinking was released into the political atmosphere, the meaning of ‘The Cause’ kept expanding past long standing barriers, to include patriarchy, the property qualification to vote, and, most offensive of all, slavery,” wrote Ellis.
From 1774-1776, John Adams was lobbied by a bevy of people, including his wife, to think bigger. Abigail Adams told her husband that American women were “determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or Representation.” She was not just speaking about the right to vote, but an end to the patriarchal system that oppressed her, according to Ellis, who wrote, “At least in her mind, ‘The Cause’ carried within its train the seeds of an American Revolution for all women.”
Adams was also petitioned by those who wanted an end to slavery. For more than a decade Quakers, Baptists, Methodists and New Light Christians had been harping on the immorality of the institution. As their boldness grew, it became harder to ignore their point. By the time the Crown determined the colonies were in rebellion and sent troops to quell them in ‘75, white Americans were beginning to understand what British domination would be like and it opened their eyes to the true nature of slavery. The petitions increasingly argued emancipation should be the first item on the agenda once the war was won. An anonymous letter from a Virginian pointedly asked, “Is it not incompatible with the glorious struggle America is making for her own liberty, to hold in absolute slavery a number of wretches in defiance of all we claim for ourselves?”
Across the colonies, the Black population had grown to approximately 500,000 and only about 50,000 were considered “free people.” Meanwhile, there were 2.1 million inhabitants of European descent, most of whom were from the British Isles.
At this pivotal moment, the triangle trade ruled the Atlantic Coast enmeshing Northern and Southern colonies in slavery. “Whole regional economies were built around the slave trade, generating enormous wealth for generations of white New Englanders, who established a narrative of racial difference that deemed Black people subhuman,” according to a report on the transatlantic slave trade by the Equal Justice Initiative.
When The Cause drove the moral message of emancipation outside the revival tent, most whites, even those who might agree, wanted to remain separated from Black people. In his book, Ellis points out that the founders did not want to create or live in a biracial society and this vexed all considerations of emancipation.
In his rudimentary attempt to contain the growing list of requests generated by the popularization of The Cause, Adams, who had to get all the colonies to agree to break away, focused solely on independence from Great Britain. ‘Nothing more and nothing less’ would be entertained. Yet, “by the winter and spring of 1776, the entire reform agenda for the next century of American history had risen to the surface,” according to Ellis.
Pending Independence
On June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed a resolution that declared independence from Great Britain. The Continental Congress delayed a vote on it until July 1, to allow each to travel home and consult their legislatures. If they approved the resolution, they would need a mission statement, a declaration of their separation from the mother country that could be shared with the world. A committee was appointed and tasked with drafting one before Congress returned.
On June 11, Adams, Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston met in Benjamin Franklin’s quarters. Franklin had no interest in writing the first draft which was taken up by Jefferson. Among the original 29 grievances against Great Britain, Jefferson blamed George III for imposing slavery upon the colonies then railed against human bondage and ravaged the Atlantic Slave Trade. Upon review, Adams and Franklin didn’t edit any of it out, the only suggestion they made to the document was to change “sacred and undeniable truth” to “self-evident” at the beginning of the second sentence.
When they met, the Continental Congress skipped the preamble, accepting it wholecloth, and focused their time and energy editing the grievances. They cut Jefferson’s description of slavery as a “cruel war against human nature” to the relief of southern delegates and dismissed his depiction of the Atlantic Slave Trade as “an assemblage of horrors,” which had made New England delegates twist in their chairs. They kept the next bit though, about how Britain encouraged slaves to rise up in insurrection against the colonists. They combined it with a fearful portrayal of Native Americans and teased out the final grievance to read,
"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us [reference to slave insurrections called for by Lord Dunmore], and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions [sic]."
According to Historian Robert Parkinson the delegates hoped fear and hate would engage and motivate the colonists to action. In an interview with Eli Lake of The Free Press, Parkinson said, “If we’re thinking about what holds this fragile union and movement together – what Adams calls ‘making 13 clocks strike as one’ – the thing they find is making people afraid of Native massacre or enslaved insurrections. That’s the tool laying on top of the toolbox, and they use it over and over. And that’s the last grievance” on purpose. The delegates swapped the last two around to end the Declaration on a note of racial fear for the sake of unity.
According to Parkinson, blatant racism, “privileging the Union over slavery,” was in the room on July 2, 1776, “and it will continue to be the bedrock of American political development until the Civil War.”
After the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain
Within a year, eight enslaved men invoked the second sentence of the Declaration when petitioning the Massachusetts Legislature for their freedom. That same year, 1777, Vermont prohibited slavery.
In 1780, Massachusetts approved a constitution declaring all men were born free and equal. That same year, Pennsylvania provided for the gradual emancipation of enslaved and banned any further importation of them. By 1783, the courts in Massachusetts ruled slavery was out-of- step with the words in the new constitution. New Hampshire’s constitution also stated all men were equal, leading their courts to the same conclusion.
The second sentence of the Declaration, the soaring rhetoric, had made its way into state constitutions and it would appear, legally bound the furtherance of slavery.
Virginia’s lawmakers sidestepped such a possibility when drafting their constitution in 1776 by amending George Mason’s draft from “all men were created equal” to “those who enter into a state of society.”
It would seem on some level Jefferson was working toward an end to human bondage, because he changed John Locke’s “Life, Liberty and Property” to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The alteration, similar to one Mason made first, deprived enslavers from arguing they had an undeniable legal right to own other people.
“On this score, there can be little doubt that Jefferson knew what he was doing,” stated Ellis. Perhaps so did Adams and Franklin when they reviewed and approved Jefferson’s work without reverting back to Locke’s verbiage.
A new consciousness was clearly emerging, and although Virginia didn’t move in step with her brethren to end the institution of slavery, lawmakers did make it easier for enslavers to manumit their slaves in 1782.
In Conclusion
The next year, the war ended in victory for the colonies. Once independent from Great Britain, the colonies entered into an experiment that changed the way the west thought about government. But whether this was a revolution remains debatable.
Kelly Carter Jackson argues in We Refuse, that America’s rebellion lacked the transformative power of a true revolution because it “did not protect indigenous peoples. It did not free the enslaved. It did not replace an exploitative system with an equitable one. It did not forfeit or radically redistribute power and wealth to the most marginalized groups.”
Petitions, letters and essays are evidence that people advocated for revolution, women wanted equality and Black Americans, as well as a significant portion of white inhabitants, wanted to end slavery. Jefferson’s words stirred the possibility of transformation, but when it was all over, the same people were in power who had been there before and they were not collectively willing to deliver on his promise. But the words had been written into existence birthing a paradox that’s impact is still felt today.
In 1787, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, after slavery made it into the founding document in a series of compromises with the South, Benjamin Franklin rose to speak. “I confess that I do not entirely approve this Constitution at present, but Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller considerations, to change my opinion on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.”
Ellis believes Franklin was referring to slavery. Knowing the country needed a national government and realizing that it would only be through centralization that slavery could be done away with once and for all, he threw his support behind an imperfect agreement. The door was now open – this new nation was, at least, rhetorically committed to human equality.
“Over the years, as the meaning of Jefferson’s words expanded, advocates of the abolition of slavery, women's rights, then racial equality and gay rights came to regard them as the semi sacred core of the American promise, the only words in the Declaration of Independence that really matter,” Ellis wrote.
As the nation careens toward new demographics that for the first time put people who consider themselves white in the minority by 2045, we can expect to see white supremacy continue to grow and the violence it wields become more frequent. Those who seek to divide the country along racial lines still thrive in this country because the United States has yet to deliver on the promise it committed to in July 1776. “We are still living a story about the presumption of white supremacy that had its origins and first chapter in the American Founding,” Ellis wrote in The Great Contradiction, The Tragic Side of the American Founding.
In the News
Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas Memorial Scholarships Awarded to ACHS Students
On May 28, McCoy Descendant Robert Taylor and ACRP Chair Gretchen Bulova awarded scholarships that honor the lives of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas to two Alexandria City High School students. Each year, one scholarship goes to a student planning to go into a trade, or attend community college and one goes to a student pursuing a four year degree in a social justice or truth telling field.
This year, the Joseph McCoy Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Mohammad Malikzad who plans to study aviation to become a commercial or corporate pilot. Malikzad moved to the United States from Afghanistan. He helps his family with English translation, appointments and by working. The McCoy Scholarship will help him to continue to assist his family while focusing on his goals, he said, adding, “Your support is helping me take an important step toward my future, and I truly appreciate it.”
Soliana Mengesha received the Benjamin Thomas Scholarship so that she can pursue a criminal justice degree and then become a lawyer. Passionate about standing up for others and ensuring people feel heard, Mengesha hopes to help create a more just society. After learning about Benjamin Thomas, she said, the scholarship holds much meaning for her. This scholarship is not only about remembering the past, but also about investing in students like me and helping turn our dreams into reality,” she said. Mengesha was raised by a single mother, and she said she “never imagined” she would “reach this point in my life, and receiving this support means more to me than I can fully put into words.”
Thank you to the ACRP family for your steady and generous support for this scholarship program that is now in its third year. These scholarships build upon Alexandria’s commitment to acknowledge and apologize for past injustices while investing in our youth and the future. This financial help has made a real difference in the lives of six Alexandria students so far. If you wish to make a contribution to next year’s scholarships or donate to our endowment to make this scholarship program permanent, please visit our campaign page with the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria.
Banned Truth Tour Show Case Finalist
On Thursday, April 23, 2026, at the Remembrance for Joseph McCoy, Abijah Pombor, the Alexandria City High School student who won the Banned Truth Tour’s showcase competition, presented “a powerful visual interpretation of remembrance,” according to the Zebra newspaper.
Before an audience of more than 100 people, Miss Pombor, 18, explained that her painting was inspired by the shock she experienced when she realized a boy was lynched “right down the street from me.”
This past school year, the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project relaunched our Remembrance Student Club at Alexandria City High School with a Banned Truth Tour. We hoped to deepen our youth’s understanding of our rich shared history, introduce them to community members and inspire them to become leaders in social justice work.
We were able to take students on three field trips, bring in experts to talk to them, and lead them through 277 years of this city’s history. We took deep dives into
- the lives of Free and Enslaved Black Alexandrians,
- the role that schools and the church played during and after the Civil War,
- the Black neighborhoods, their leaders and the many lawyers and activists who fought against segregation and for civil rights.
Students met with community members, who are intimately tied to this city’s past, who joined us to share their stories with the students. This was one of the most electric aspects of the programs and the students asked us to expand it next year.
The Banned Truth Tour culminated in an invitation to compete for a $500 cash award. Students were asked to reflect on their experiences on the Truth Tours and research some aspects of our history more deeply.
Miss Pombor’s oil painting depicted some of the sites we visited, including the Freedom House, Freemen’s Cemetery, the two historic markers recognizing the lynchings of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas and the segregated reading room built for Black Alexandrians in reaction to the 1939 Sit In. There is a pathway connecting all of the sites that flows beyond the canvas to show that remembrance does not end in a single moment, that the work of acknowledging the past continues from generation to generation.
April’s Joseph McCoy Remembrance Events
On April 23 and April 24, Alexandrians remembered Joseph McCoy, who was lynched in this city 129 years ago, with an evening event at Roberts Memorial United Methodist Church on Thursday, April 23, and a workshop on civil rights activism with the NAACP at the Durant Center on Friday, April 24.
On Thursday evening, Mayor Gaskins spoke about the importance of remembrance, descendants of Joseph McCoy, Rev. Robert Taylor and Dr. Debra White provided context about the lynching of Mr. McCoy, and Dr. Rodney Sadler, Jr. provided thought provoking remarks about the continuation of the struggle for a democracy that represents everyone equally. Our host, Rev. Franklin closed the event with a heartfelt message to join together and work toward a just and fair community. The hour-long program drew a large crowd that included the City Manager James Parajon, Commonwealth’s Attorney Brian Porter and several members of the City Council.
About 30 people attended the Civil Rights training on Friday sponsored by the NAACP in memory of Joseph McCoy. The NAACP’s national trainer Wisdom Cole provided a condensed history of America’s fight for civil and political rights as well as nuts and bolts instructions for participants of the workshop.
Upcoming Events
Please join Alexandria’s Juneteenth Celebration
Friday, June 19
Multiple events and locations
Free
There will be many ways to celebrate Juneteenth this year, starting at 10 a.m. with a memorial event at Douglass Cemetery featuring Dr. Elgin Klugh of Coppin State University; at 1pm the Washington-Revels Jubilee Voices concert at Shiloh Baptist Church will honor the four Black churches established in the wake of the Civil War; this program will be followed by the Pioneer Awards at Charles Houston Recreational Center at 3pm and the entire day culminates in a street party on the 900 block of Wythe Street with Go-go music from 4-8 p.m. Both the Freedom House Museum and Alexandria’s Black History Museum will be open during the holiday. Visit Alexandriava.gov/Juneteenth for more details.
Coming this Fall! Discerning Dinners Fundraiser
Thursday, Nov. 5, 6 p.m.
Lloyd House
Tickets $40
In addition to the popular Tables of Conscience book-themed fundraising dinners, ACRP is launching a larger community dinner and discussion event to raise money for the annual Memorial Scholarship Program. These dinners will feature a guest who will speak briefly before opening up a conversation on interesting and meaningful topics and issues. Our first community dinner and discussion will be held on Thurs., Nov. 5, 2026 at the Lloyd House and will feature a conversation on the Underground Railroad with Tony Cohen, co-founder of the Montgomery County Lynching Memorial Project, who is currently leading a walk exploring the Underground Railroad from Baltimore to Niagara Falls. Stay tuned for more information, including how to reserve space and purchase tickets for this event. All proceeds from ticket sales will go directly to the scholarships set up in the names of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas.
Upcoming Committee Meetings
The Committee of Inquiry will meet on Tuesday, June 9 at 7 p.m. at Alexandria Black History Museum.
The Faith Initiative’s Clergy Coffee will be held on Wednesday, June 10 from 9-10:30 a.m.
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project Steering Committee will meet on Wednesday, June 10 at 5:30 p.m. at the Alexandria Black History Museum.
Committee Reports
The Committee of Inquiry met on Tuesday, May 11 and reviewed progress.
The Faith Initiative held a Clergy Coffee on Wednesday, May 12 at Beulah Baptist Church to talk about the history of the church and other matters.
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project Steering Committee met on Wednesday, May 12 at Alexandria Black History Museum and reviewed the Joseph McCoy Remembrance, began planning for the Benjamin Thomas Remembrance, heard committee updates and discussed future fundraising efforts for the Memorial Scholarship Program.
Alexandria Community Remembrance Project
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project (ACRP) is a city-wide initiative dedicated to helping Alexandria understand its history of racial terror hate crimes and to work toward creating a welcoming community bound by equity and inclusion.
In Memoriam
Write "ACRP" in Comments on the donation form.
Office of Historic Alexandria
City of Alexandria, Virginia
ACRP@alexandriava.gov