Today, I’m thankful for those who do the right thing to maintain unity.
Unity is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “the quality or state of being made one,” wherein the “combination or ordering of the parts constitutes a whole or promotes an undivided total effect.” Simply put, unity is a “condition of harmony” that is derived from our diversity. The word is derived from the Latin unitas or unus, which translates as “one.” The unity concept is foundational to our nation’s existence, so much so that it is emboldened in our country’s name (the United States of America) and our original motto of a nation (E Pluribus Unum).
“E Pluribus Unum” is a Latin phrase that translates to: “From many, one.” It was specifically chosen back in 1776, during the advent of the American Revolution, for two reasons. First, the motto cleverly comprises 13 letters, which clearly carries symbolism pertaining to the 13 states that made up the original United States of America. Each letter is required to make the entire phrase work. More importantly, the motto epitomized the idea that the 13 states, which at that time made up this new nation of about 2.5 million individuals, were recognizably unique but they were choosing to come together to create a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Each state operated in its own way and espoused its own philosophies, but they came together under the auspices of a single nation governed by one Constitution. Eventually, the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the Constitution, would espouse to these differences.
Today, the freedom of speech, religion, & press outlined in the Bill of Rights is taken for granted by many of us. Sadly, there was a time when such liberties, even in America, weren’t guaranteed. Long before the US Bill of Rights was first penned in 1789, a lesser-known petition called for religious tolerance in the New World. On this day (Dec 27) in 1657, the Flushing Remonstrance was conceived. Now, many of you are wondering: Wait, what the heck is that? Well, in 1657, the colony of New Netherlands, what is now in one of the boroughs of New York City, did not allow for religious practices outside of the Dutch Reformed Church. Peter Stuyvesant, the Director-General of this Dutch colony, chose to ignore the prevailing sentiment of his homeland. You see, at that time, The Netherlands had established sweeping policies throughout the Dutch mainland and its colonies permitting broad religious tolerance, even as the Dutch Reformed Church remained the official recognized religion of Holland. However, Stuyvesant refused to support the Dutch policy of connivance. Instead of turning a blind eye to a small English Quaker community that had settled in New Netherlands, he vigorously harassed, persecuted, and exiled these genteel pacifists who expressed varying theological beliefs. In protest, several citizens of the New Netherlands colony authored the Flushing Remonstrance calling for the end of harassment. The petition, which called for the basic freedom of religion of the Quakers, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Independents, was sent to Stuyvesant: “If any of these persons come in love unto us, we cannot in good conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free egress and regress unto our Town and houses…for we are bound by the law of God and man to do good until all men and evil onto no man.”
But, here’s the most amazing part of this elegantly written remonstrance: None of the 30 individuals who wrote and signed the document were Quakers. Instead, a total of 30 Dutch stalwarts stood up for their Quaker neighbors in espousing a principle that did not directly benefit them. Local officials arrested many of its authors, but the Dutch protectorate across the Atlantic Ocean eventually stepped in & ended the persecution.
More than three centuries later, in 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. would deliver the commencement speech at Oberlin College, an institution of higher learning in Ohio historically known for its tolerance to differing religions and creeds. In his speech, MLK Jr. would say his now famous words: “The time is always right to do what is right.” The speech contained many of the same elements that he espoused a few years earlier in his I Have a Dream speech. As he would note that summer day at Oberlin: “All that I’ve said is that we must work for peace, for racial injustice, for economic injustice, and for brotherhood the world over. We have inherited a big house, a great world house in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, Muslim and Hindu. If we all learn to do this, we, in a real sense, will remain awake through a great revolution.”
Unfortunately, we often forget to do the right thing. As Spike Lee would remind us in his epic movie bearing this name, we often fail to stand up for others. Do the Right Thing was released exactly two hundred years after the Bill of Rights was first written. In that movie, which ironically enough takes place on Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn, we see the torment faced by a predominantly African American neighborhood trying to reconcile that many of the local businesses, like Sal’s Pizzeria and the Korean Grocery Store, are owned and operated by individuals other than African Americans. The sweltering heat of the day leads to increasing tensions that eventually climax in the unfortunate death of an individual and the destruction of the pizzeria. In the end, no one really does the right thing.
Each and every one of us comes from a different upbringing. Our lack of familiarity with one another often poses a threat to our personal belief system. Yet, since the original passage of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it is that same diversity that has helped make the United States of America so innovative, so successful, and so desirable. Still, each and every day, our nation struggles to remain unified and indivisible. The recent events of social injustice, triggered by the pointless, brutal murder of George Floyd, remind me that we still have a long way to go to realize the mission set forth by our nation’s forefathers – and even the Dutch settlers in New York a century before that.
We have to always keep striving to do the right thing. I’m grateful for those who remind us that this ‘big house’ in which we live needs our support. For it to stand upright, we need to first stand up for the rights of others.
