I think for myself that talking about the AmRev as “unfinished” is perhaps the most useful discourse we can have around the memory of the AmRev & in defining our relationship to the founding. Indeed, the idea of an “unfinished revolution” has its own history. https://twitter.com/nativeamtext/status/1279392102414274562

The earliest expressions of the idea of the Revolution as “unfinished” date back to the abolitionist movement of the early 19c and found its most compelling (and perhaps first full) voicing in Frederick Douglass’s famous Rochester speech on July 5, 1852. https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2945 

In that speech, Douglass framed his thoughts on the Revolution and both his and the country’s relationship to it by saying, “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.”

By arguing that those who celebrated July 4 but did not fight for equality desecrated the memory of the AmRev, he offered his own coherent memory of the AmRev not just as a discrete historical event but an ongoing process whose memory was crucial to the realization of its ideals.

Failure to commit to the pursuit of the principles embedded in the Revolution & the realization of the vision promised by its rhetoric, he argued, effectively rendered the historical event itself meaningless & stood as the greatest possible insult to the Revolution & its memory.

My current book mss explores the contested nature of the memory of the AmRev in our history, including its importance in so many of the social & political movements in our past that sought to further the realization of equality & whose memories we also look to with purpose.

One can make very good arguments (and @NativeAmText has) that the Revolution should not have this kind of importance in our political culture, both in the past and present, but the reality is that it has, does & will continue to. And if we are to be inescapably tethered to it...

...a memory of the AmRev that focuses on equality as an ideal to be constantly worked toward (and thereby forces us to reckon with our past & present failures in that work) is preferable to the mythos of a national immaculate conception driven by a few individuals.

Therefore, I agree with Douglass that sitting around patting ourselves on the back is no way to commemorate the Revolution. Rather, July 4th should be seen as a day to renew our individual & communal commitment to recognizing current inequalities & working toward redressing them.