At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin, who was eighty-one years old, gave the following address on June 28 when hostilities and bitterness threatened to totally disrupt the convention:
Mr. President: the small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasoning with each other — our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding.
We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of our assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor.
To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
We had been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves have become a reproach and byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move — that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.8
The speech apparently had such a profound effect on all present that the assembly voted to begin every session with prayer, a tradition that has continued until this day. I love to drag this passage out when so-called intellectuals claim that Benjamin Franklin was an atheist. Many people like to rewrite history or delete portions to bolster their arguments before gullible audiences. But I am so grateful for people such as former congressional candidate William Federer, who has done extraordinary research to uncover documents revealing the true sentiments and beliefs of our founders. Only through the careful study of historical documents can we prevent the distortion of where we came from and who we are as a nation.
Freedom to worship or not worship as one pleases would not be an issue were it not for the extreme intolerance of antireligion groups. In many cases, these are the very same people who brand anyone who disagrees with their agenda as bigoted and intolerant. Their extreme hypocrisy is almost comical, were it not so sad.
I have also frequently heard people question the faith of Thomas Jefferson. However, in his 1781 notes on the state of Virginia, he wrote, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
This passage and many others like it leave no doubt about Jefferson’s beliefs. There are many more convincing statements by other founding leaders such as George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Webster, Thomas Paine, John Locke, James Madison, and others that make it clear there was never any intention of removing God from the public sphere of our nation.9
Remember all the controversy in 2003 surrounding the order given by a United States district judge to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama State judicial building? A similar thing then happened in the courthouse in Jackson County, Kentucky, where the Ten Commandments had to be removed in response to a lawsuit. Statues, nativity scenes, and other religious objects have also been removed by zealous opponents of anything that has to do with God. Somehow the people initiating these lawsuits believe that making these objects visible to the public violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which says the legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion. They conveniently forget about that part of the amendment that follows saying that the government should not prohibit the free exercise of religion. The infamous lawsuit instigated by Michael Newdow in Sacramento sought to remove the phrase “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, but if these kinds of activities don’t constitute the prohibition of free exercise of religion, then what does? Until the antireligion zealots learn the meaning of the word tolerance, we will continue to experience unnecessary strife.
What message are we sending the next generation when a student is not allowed to express himself freely? In the Morgan v. Plano Independent School District case, also known as the “candy cane” case, several students were denied their free speech rights and discriminated against because their speech was religious in nature. A young boy was singled out and banned from handing out candy cane pens with a religious message at his class “winter” party. This case also includes a little girl who was threatened for handing out tickets after school to a religious play, and an entire class of kids was forbidden from writing “Merry Christmas” on holiday cards to American troops serving overseas. The government officials who appealed the ruling are now arguing that elementary students are too young to have First Amendment rights.10
If anyone is still skeptical about our roots as a nation of faith, consider the fourth stanza of our national anthem:
Oh! Thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
praise the pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto — “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Is it any wonder that God has blessed America to such a great extent? We acknowledge him in our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, in our Pledge of Allegiance, in our courtrooms, in our national anthem, and on our money, to name a few things. In return, he has blessed us above all nations just as he said he would. Before we throw away those blessings, remember what George Washington said: “The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude toward the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. And it is my earnest prayer that we may so conduct ourselves as to merit a continuance of those blessings with which we have hitherto been favored.”11
Could it be that the father of our nation was not only talking to the people who were his contemporaries, but was also providing a word of encouragement and warning for fut
ure generations?
— CHAPTER 4 —
A DIFFERENT SCHOOL
OF THOUGHT
ON MY FIRST DAY in Mrs. McQueen’s bright, cheery kindergarten class at Detroit’s Fisher Elementary School, all students were required to bring a rug on which to sit while we happily learned new songs, games, and facts all day long. Since my mother was (and still is) so thrifty, she was able to supply one for me in spite of the fact that we didn’t have much money. At the time, I didn’t think about the fact that it probably came from either Goodwill or the Salvation Army; I was simply excited about the new experience and the opportunity to play with so many other children.
Kindergarten, first, second, and the first half of third grade were not particularly rigorous. School was mostly fun and games, I was an average student, and life was peaceful. After my parents got divorced and we were forced to move to Boston, we lived in a tenement not far from Franklin Park and the Zoo. My brother, Curtis, and I walked through the park every morning on our way to a parochial school, which had only two classrooms. There were four grades in each classroom, and all eight grades were taught by only two teachers. Consequently, the vast majority of our time was spent singing songs and playing games.
By the time my mother, Curtis, and I moved back to Detroit, I had essentially lost a year of school while in Boston, my academic performance lagging far behind that of my new classmates. To make matters worse, I was the only black kid in the class. In those days in Detroit, academic expectations for a black boy were not very high, particularly in a predominantly white school. After every quiz, each student had to report his or her score out loud for the teacher to record, and classmates always snickered after I announced my abysmally low scores. Although they teased me a great deal about this, none of them ever had to worry about getting the lowest score on a test as long as I was in the classroom. You might say I served as the class safety net.
Needless to say, my self-esteem began to follow my academic expectations of myself in a downward spiral. I would even laugh along with others at some of the jokes about me. To cope with the ridicule, I smiled a lot and tried to adopt a nonchalant attitude about being the class dummy. I secretly admired those who always knew the answers and were the last ones out in the spelling bees. I never imagined that I could be smart, let alone win a spelling bee. The low expectations everyone had for me — including my own expectations of myself — would certainly have predicted a dismal future for me.
Fortunately my mother, with her third-grade education, was terrified that because of our poor academic performance both my brother and I would end up with low-paying menial jobs as she had. She didn’t know what to do to help change our path, so she asked God to give her wisdom on how to inspire her sons to work hard and make something of themselves. That’s when she came up with the idea of turning off the television and making us read two books apiece from the Detroit public libraries each week. She also made us submit to her written book reports, which of course she could not read, but we didn’t know that. Her friends told her that her sons would grow up to hate her, but that did not matter to her, as long as we were successful.
I didn’t hate Mother, but in the beginning I sure hated reading those books. After a while, however, I actually began to look forward to them, because they afforded me a fantastic escape from our everyday poverty and sense of hopelessness. There in the city, books about nature captivated me. First I read Chip, The Dam Builder, then other animal stories over the years up to Jack London’s Call of the Wild as my reading ability increased. I began to imagine myself as a great explorer or scientist or doctor. I learned things no one else around me knew. Every single day my knowledge of our world expanded, which excited me to no end. And since I was constantly reading, I became a much better speller and started becoming competitive in the spelling bees.
Once I started believing I was smart, I really didn’t care that much about what anybody else thought about me, and I became consumed with a desire to increase my learning far beyond that of my classmates. The more I read biographies about those who had made significant accomplishments in life, the more I wanted to emulate them. By the time I reached the seventh grade, I reveled in the fact that the same classmates who used to taunt me were now coming to me, asking how to solve problems or spell words. Once the joy of learning filled my heart, there was no stopping me.
Many of the teachers at Southwestern High School in Detroit were excellent, but they rarely had the opportunity to demonstrate how good they were because so much of classroom time was wasted handling disciplinary problems. I remember seeing teachers in tears because of the treatment they received from students trying to show off for others. Things almost turned violent when a substitute was once unfortunate enough to be cast into the “den of lions.” The young teacher assigned to one of my history classes had the glasses, tweed jacket, brown shoes, and short pants to suggest that he was a nerd, and the students could not wait to begin tormenting him with odd noises, paper wads, and wisecracks. He became so frustrated that he left the room, and the assistant principal had to come restore order. The same scenario was repeated over and over again in my biology class with Mr. McCotter, a very nice man with a big heart, who wanted nothing more than to impart a solid education to the students who mercilessly tormented him. In spite of the resistance he faced, he never left the class and continued trying to teach against the odds. Given the challenges facing teachers such as these, it isn’t hard to understand why Detroit has such low high school graduation rates.1
In spite of her exhaustion from working to make ends meet, Mother was dedicated to making sure Curtis and I would buck the trend, and if we were still up when she arrived home from work, she never neglected to ask what we had learned in school that day. Because of all the reading she had encouraged me to do, I was very motivated to learn and took it upon myself to achieve a first-class education in a second-class environment. I would go back after school to talk to any teacher whose lesson had been derailed by interruptions and ask, “What were you planning to teach today?” They would of course be delighted to share with me what they had prepared, and very much appreciated someone benefiting from their hard work.
Dedicated to placing myself in positions in which my education would flourish, I subsequently became the biology laboratory assistant and was responsible for setting up the laboratory experiments. This meant that, regardless of what lessons did or did not take place in class on any given day, I learned them nevertheless. Not long after that, I began helping set up some of the chemistry and physics laboratories as well.
My own initiative to learn was also encouraged by many of my teachers, who had a profound effect on my education. Mrs. Miller, one of my English teachers, took a strong interest in my academic performance and had tremendous influence in my life, frequently acting as a barrier between me and my recurrent desire to be part of the crowd. And many of my other teachers encouraged me to take part in the regional forensics contests, citywide competitions in which students from various schools had an opportunity to recite poetry or dramatic prose before an audience who rated them in terms of style and effectiveness. There I acquired a great deal of confidence in my ability to speak in public.
I also received help and guidance to participate in many of the citywide and statewide science fairs. These competitions exposed me to students from more affluent areas who were considerably more advanced than I was, inspiring me to work even harder.
One need look no further for public servants than the many public school teachers around our country. The vast majority of them not only pour themselves tirelessly into their work for the sake of their students, they also forgo all kinds of recognition and financial compensation to do so. When I won a scholarship to Interlochen, one of the most prestigious music camps in the country, instead of being elated that Southwestern High School had finally produced this level of musical talent, my band teacher, Mr. Doakes (who went on to become Dr. Doakes), advised me not to accept the scholarship “becau
se it would interfere with my preparation to become a great doctor one day.” He was willing to forgo a huge feather in his own cap for the sake of my career. Teachers like him were not uncommon as I was growing up, and it is one of the reasons why I have so much respect and admiration for teachers today.
Intending to become a citizen of the world, I extended my own education far beyond the school’s curriculum. I began frequenting art museums, historical societies, and many of the collections and galleries found on campuses of local colleges and universities. I became quite an expert in identifying classical music, and both art and music remain an important part of my life today.
Through education, I was completely changed to become a productive citizen of the world. And what is true in the life of one is true in the life of whole communities and entire nations: education has the power to transform. I firmly believe that the solid public education system established in the American colonies centuries ago was largely responsible for our nation’s rapid rise on the world stage in the areas of economics, innovation, and industry. And what was possible then is still possible today.
America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great Page 6