Seattle-area civic leaders reflect on America's 250th anniversary

As millions of Americans gather to watch bright fireworks displays and sport red, white and blue this Fourth of July, some are also reflecting on the progress the U.S. has made since its adoption of the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago.

It's a complicated time. While fan celebrations and soccer matches continue in multiple cities - including Seattle - for the FIFA Men's World Cup, tensions over immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights, the U.S. military's involvement overseas and rising cost of living, from gas prices to groceries, still linger.

Ahead of July 4, we asked eight Seattle-area civic leaders: What lessons should we learn from the past 250 years? What are your hopes for the next 250?

A number of them wished for Americans to set aside their differences, unite toward common goals and treat each other with more compassion. Several believed that differences make this nation stronger, and demanded urgent action and reform from the federal government.

Despite the spectrum of comments, they echoed a glowing sentiment of hope - and that a country that upholds democracy for all is worth striving toward.

Here are their responses, in their own words.

Mary Yu, retired Washington state Supreme Court justice

The 250th anniversary of our independence provides an opportunity to look both back and forward. It invites us to learn about the historical challenges and conflict the nation has undergone and to observe that we survived. Progress and respect for the common good prevailed.

As I look to the future, I believe it will be the same. We will thrive because we are a nation with a durable system of laws and institutional norms. While this sense of order is currently under threat, the American people are kind, generous, inclusive and thoughtful. We believe in a form of government and legal system that protects rights, resolves disputes peacefully and treats people with fairness and dignity. This belief in the American Rule of Law is what has enabled people to take risks, start businesses, pursue education, and build families. It is what allows newcomers to believe they can succeed because everyone will be afforded an equal chance at success.

The rule of law is not just a legal concept. It has been the engine of opportunity and stability. It is the vision that drew my parents here. It is what supports the trust that our hard work will not be undone by unfairness or corruption because we adhere to the core principle that no one is above the law. I am optimistic that we will return to the vision of liberty and freedom that rests upon an ethic of decency and responsibility to care for the common person.

Jeremy Johnson, Northwest University president

As America marks its 250th anniversary, I find myself reflecting on a remarkable experiment: a nation built on the conviction that human dignity, liberty, and self-government are worth pursuing, even imperfectly.

The past 250 years remind us that freedom is not self-sustaining. Every generation must renew the virtues that make a free society possible - character, courage, responsibility, faith, and a commitment to the common good. Our greatest advances have come when we have expanded opportunity, served our neighbors, and worked to align our practices more closely with our ideals.

As the president of a Christian university, I am especially mindful that education plays a vital role in this work. A healthy democracy requires more than knowledge; it requires citizens who are prepared to lead, serve, and contribute to their communities with wisdom and integrity. My own understanding of leadership is shaped by Jesus' call to love our neighbors and serve others. At its best, education forms not only skilled graduates, but men and women of character and compassion - people who use their talents to strengthen their communities and help others flourish.

My hope for the next 250 years is that America remains a place where people from every background can flourish, where innovation is matched by compassion, and where future generations are inspired not only to pursue success, but to live lives of purpose, service, and hope. That is a legacy worth building together.

Abigail Echo-Hawk, Seattle Indian Health Board executive vice president

America was built on bloodshed. That violence was solidified at the signing of the Declaration of Independence - the founding document that claims that all men are created equal," while referring to the country's first people as "merciless Indian Savages." America 250 could be seen as a celebration of those words that intentionally made Indigenous people less than human in order to justify our eradication.

And it didn't end there. The genocide of Native peoples became policy, giving permission to take our lands, destroy our cultures, steal our children, murder our women, and force us into boarding schools, disconnecting us from everything we know.

But despite this country's attempts to kill us, we are still here and we are still fighting for our people. In order to undo the actions of the past, the next 250 years must be focused on upholding tribal sovereignty, fulfilling treaty rights, and recognizing the violence must end. While I will not be celebrating the white-washed version of our country's history, I will be celebrating the fact that our people are still leading, still building, still singing, still fighting for our children's futures and their place here. Will you fight with me?

Reagan Dunn, Metropolitan King County Council vice chair

Two hundred fifty years ago, America's founders made a bold declaration: 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.

Preserving our freedom over the past 250 years has not been easy, nor has securing our rights. Yet through the Civil War, Jim Crow, World War II, the Cold War, 9/11, and countless other trials, we have kept the flame of liberty burning.

As our nation's history was beginning, John Adams wrote, "Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it." Hundreds of years later, Ronald Reagan warned that "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction." Our great experiment in democratic self-government has always been fragile, and it remains so today. The rights that were so difficult to secure 250 years ago still require constant effort to preserve.

Yet I am confident that 250 years from now - just as it was 250 years ago - democracy will remain fragile but worth defending, freedom will remain vulnerable but worth preserving, and our rights and equal dignity under God and the law will remain inalienable.

Michele Storms, ACLU of Washington executive director

We can build the inclusive and just society promised 250 years ago, where everyone has a voice. One defined by compassion, equity, and the rule of law. We can and we must.

America's founders declared independence only for themselves. Many displaced thriving Indigenous communities and held African Americans in enslavement. Our highest court's earliest rulings were often unjust toward Black people, women, immigrants of color, and people with disabilities. This impacts us today. The choice before us: Is freedom for everyone or only a favored few?

Today's challenges are great. The safety, security, and freedom of immigrants, LGBTQIA2S+ communities (especially transgender individuals), people of color, and non-Christians are imperiled. We face authoritarianism, oligarchy, and massive inequality.

Still, I hope. And work.

We must work to honor the rights of every human being in America.

We must ensure that status, money, race, or creed puts no one above the law, and that no human is unworthy of due process.

We must embrace belonging. Difference is a gift that makes us stronger, wiser, and more fully human.

A democracy is strongest when all participate and are equally respected and engaged. I dream of and work toward this democracy every day.

Steven Hatting, Washington Policy Center president and CEO

In 1976, I proudly represented Benjamin Franklin Elementary in our local bicentennial parade. Those same feelings of patriotism returned 50 years later as I helped unfurl the pitch-spanning American flag before Seattle's June 19 World Cup match while 66,925 fans in red, white and blue chanted "U-S-A.

I hope everyone finds that Fourth of July fireworks kind of feeling.

For me, America's first 250 years prove our nation's greatest strength is empowering people to pursue excellence. Our founders understood that our rights are not granted, but born with us. Like a referee, the government's responsibility is to preserve a fair playing field - not decide who wins. The rest is up to you and me. When Americans are free to strive, innovate, compete and collaborate, they build businesses, strengthen communities, solve problems and open doors for others to realize their own potential.

My hope for the next 250 years is that we spend less time talking about STATES - red or blue - and return more focus to UNITED. We won't always agree, but if we work together to expand opportunity and encourage every American to contribute their very best, our greatest victories will come not because we all play the same position, but because we're all playing for the same team.

Malou Chávez, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project executive director

Historically, U.S. immigration laws have heavily factored in race and national origin to dictate who is allowed in and when. Today, as a result of racist immigration policies, families are being separated. People of all ages, including children, are held in detention. Our community members are disappearing into the shadows. The system is designed to work this way: Laws maintain that some people do not deserve to be treated with dignity.

For the next 250 years, my hope is for large-scale immigration reform that centers the dignity of all people, respects their right to due process, ensures every person has meaningful legal representation, and puts an end to the use of detention. We can only achieve this by building power with people closest to injustice, electing leaders who share these values, using the skills we each have, and not giving up. Because our leaders and our laws must uphold the dignity inherent in every community member.

Eric Liu, Citizen University CEO

Our nation was born out of a set of ideas - a civic creed about equality, liberty, and self-government. Before the ink was even dry on the Declaration of Independence, Americans could see there was a great gap between our creed and our deeds. There always has been. Maybe there always will be. But that's not cause for cynicism. It's a perpetual invitation to do better.

The ancient Roman Tacitus defined patriotism as "praiseworthy competition with our ancestors." Think Jefferson was a hypocrite? Do better. Think we've gone off the rails ever since this person or that took office? Do better. Think today's innovators have made our economy warped and our culture sick? Do better. The 250th reminds us that true patriotism isn't complacency or complaint. It's closing the creed-deed gap.

We do that best not by gawking at political performers on our screens but by turning to each other, in person, rekindling habits of trust and mutuality and productive disagreement. When we recommit to the local, to place and relationship, we can repair what others have broken, convert disappointment into hope, and help make our community live up to its potential. Live the creed where you live. America will follow.

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