Sunday, January 13, 2019

Barbara Jordan: Our Eternal Lesson


A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibililty for upholding the common good.

"We, the people." It is a very elegant beginning. But when that document was completed on the 17th of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people."


If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.

But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants. 

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision. 

The imperative is to define what is right and do it. 

Just remember the world is not a playground but a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love.

Barbara Jordan
 

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