To be as old as the United States of America is to be about six when the 13 colonies were creating the Great Seal of the United States in 1782.
When able to read well, we might have inspected the obverse side of the seal and wondered why the bald eagle was chosen as our national bird, why there was a scroll in its beak inscribed with E pluribus unum, why one of its talons holds 13 arrows while the other holds an olive branch. Growing up, we would learn that the Latin words, the arrows, and the olive branch emphasize the importance of unity and peace after war.
On the reverse side of the seal, we would have seen a pyramid bearing the year 1776 in Roman numerals at its base. Above the pyramid we would have come in contact with the Eye of Providence and the words Annuit Coeptis, which translate to “God favors our undertaking.”
Looking into the Eye of Providence, we might have imagined it watching over the United States since before 1776. Through its gaze, we might have seen Paul Revere on his “Midnight Ride” to warn colonial leaders of the advancing British troops. If we wished, the Eye could take us as far back as when the first colonists landed in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and when enslaved Africans first landed on the shores of Virginia in 1619.
We can go so far as to imagine that the Eye of Providence had seen the Red Coats being defeated, slavery becoming an enterprise, and the framers inscribing in their 1787 Constitution that three-fifths of all enslaved persons would be counted for congressional apportionment, increasing the political power of slave-holding states.
In 1793, the Eye saw the First Fugitive Slave Act legalize that any Black man, woman or child who ran away from enslavement was fit to be hunted like a wild animal and returned to their owner. In 1808, the Eye saw the Trans Atlantic being banned, and yet the enterprise of slavery still flourished in the United States. In 1857 it saw the Supreme Court declare in its Dred Scott decision that people of African descent were not citizens and had no rights in the eyes of Whites. In 1863, it saw that even though President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed enslaved Africans free, their freedom had to wait until June 19, 1865.
In 1877, the Eye saw the Compromise derailing progress toward racial integration, launching Jim Crow and removing the federal troops that had suppressed Ku Klux Klan terror. The Eye saw all this happen in the United States despite the 1865 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, despite the 1866 14th Amendment to grant freed Africans citizenship, despite the 1869 15th Amendment to grant Black men the right to vote.
In 1896, the Eye saw the Supreme Court rule in the Plessy v. Ferguson case that racial segregation was legal. In 1916, it saw a large number of Black men, women and children flee the South for the Northeast and Midwest. There would be providence with the Supreme Court ruling in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case that segregation in schools was unconstitutional, and more with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. And yet, Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 and Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.
And more Black lives would be terminated.
In 1968, Black students in Orangeburg, South Carolina, were shot and killed by highway patrol officers. In 1985, Philadelphia Police Department bombed a Black residential area, killing adults and children. In 1989, a white mob in Brooklyn shot 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins to death for suspicion the Black teenager was dating a neighborhood white girl.
Despite the United States electing its first Blackpresident in 2008; despite America making significant progress in science and technology ― from landing astronauts on the Moon to deploying artificial intelligence ― the Eye still sees racism confounding America’s aspiration for racial integration, seeing the lives of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and many more Black people terminated.
America’s longevity hides a deeper, systemic refusal to value Black lives.
America lives longer, but the racial home ownership gap remains wide, and the sweeping cuts of the Department of Government Efficiency have fallen disproportionately on Black people. America lives longer, but cuts to Medicaid through One Big Big Beautiful Bill disproportionately affect Black Americans. America lives longer, but infants born to Black mothers are twice as likely to die as those born to white mothers. America lives longer, but Black mothers are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications. America lives longer, but nearly a quarter of Black children still live in poverty. America lives longer, but our democracy remains trapped in the past, where gerrymandering, stretching from the Deep South to the Midwest, is used to dilute the Black vote.
America’s odyssey continues.
The Eye sees the promised land over the mountain, but our steepest climb toward a more perfect union remains: slaying the multi-headed beast of an illusion ― that divine favor belongs only to the fair-skinned likeness of the founders.
Walter Suza of Ames writes frequently on the intersections of spirituality, anti-racism and social justice. He can be contacted at wsuza2020@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: At 250, America hasn’t secured equal dignity for Black lives | Opinion
Reporting by Lucas Grundmeier, Des Moines Register / Ames Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Lucas Grundmeier, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
