John Adams thought America’s independence should be celebrated “with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.” In honor of its 250th birthday, Americans did just that, with a National Mall gathering and massive fireworks display to Independence Day parades in all 50 states and much more.
As my wife and I watched the July 4th coverage on television, we spent some time with the PBS event in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, where we listened to one of the most perceptive speeches about our nation’s past and future I have ever heard.
‘Do we still have what it takes?’
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, chairs the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and serves as National Honorary Chair of the Virginia 250 Commission. Her undergraduate studies in philosophy and history at Stanford University helped her understand what her biography calls “the power of ideas to drive change.”
After welcoming those gathered in Virginia and expressing her gratitude for America and all who built our nation, she observed, “Perhaps as we gather tonight, we quietly worry. Have we become too jaded? Too fractured? Have we lost the ‘secret sauce’? Do we still have what it takes?” To ensure our flourishing and our future, what does it “take”?
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Jim Denison and originally published by the Denison Forum.
