What the Democracy Lab is Thinking About this Fourth of July
This Saturday marked the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This anniversary gives this Fourth of July in particular a cause for people to look back into American history as we step into this moment in our national life. As a fellow in the Democracy Lab, I am surrounded by faculty and other student researchers thinking about how we “can enrich understandings of democratic practices, democratic engagement, democratic values, and democratic culture.” Given that Democracy Lab projects focus on democracy from a variety of lens – the historic and the contemporary, the local and the global, and the physical and the digital – I wanted to draw upon these different areas of expertise to learn what my fellow researchers in the Democracy Lab are thinking about this moment. In accordance with two key Democracy Lab values, inquiry and dissemination, below is a short list of recommendations for pieces of media that one can engage with to yield insight into what we at the Democracy Lab are thinking about as important and valuable in this historic moment.
Dr. Bert Emerson recommends two pieces of media, one from 19th century and one more contemporary. His first recommendation is Frederick Douglas’s speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Douglass’s convictions about the ideals expressed in the Founding repeatedly call us to live more fully into that vision. He second recommendation is “Democracy in America – A Conversation,” an interview with journalist and author Osita Nwanevu about democracy in America’s political context today (who will be coming to Whitworth in the fall). Nwanevu thinks widely and broadly about democracy; although he has his political convictions, he is first and foremost committed to a more democratic world.
Dr. Julia Stronks recommends two ways to follow what is happening with Supreme Court and America’s legal landscape: The Volokh Conspiracy and The Docket by legal analyst Adam Liptak. She also recommends Letters from an American by historian Heather Cox Richardson, which she says, “blows her away every time.”
Democracy Lab student fellow Annaclare Splettoeszer recommends “Return the National Parks to the Tribes,” an article by journalist and author David Treuer that she says has especially valuable ending as the “conclusion challenges common conceptions of outdoor conservation and, indeed, focuses on what Treuer writes has formed American democracy more than anything else: the land itself.”
Democracy Lab student fellow Olivia Kizer says she thinks “re-reading some of the founding documents every once in a while, can provide enormous insight into the motivations and thoughts of the founders and allow us to engage with our history better while considering the present moment.” She specifically recommends Federalist 10 for its condemnation of factions and its discussion of parts of the Constitution as a possible solution to them. She also recommends this conversation between Robert George and Cornel West highlighting civic friendship and truth seeking though they great disagreement of political opinion.
Democracy Lab student fellow Leah Mirante shares how the focus of her project for Democracy Lab research, the Black Church Burning Project, highlights “a lack of research and documentation that shows exactly how far our nation still has to come.” She recommends visiting the website where this research is housed, the Black Church Burning Project.
As student fellow primarily working on the Tribal Neighbors project, much of the focus of my work has been researching the recent history of tribal engagement at Whitworth. This work has necessitated a deeper understanding of the context in which the broader history of relationships between tribes and settler institutions has emerged; that is, the history of Indigenous people in the United States. In this sense, my recommendation is First America, a podcast from Cherokee journalist and author and journalist Rebecca Nagle. In this season she reckons not only with America’s past as a nation but also our present. Dr. Jason Wollshlegler has also been enjoying listening to the First America podcast. If someone is interested in a further and longer exploration in Indigenous history in the United States, I recommend Yale historian Ned Blackhawk’s book The Rediscovery of America. I also recommend this conversation between the New York Time’s Ezra Klein and the director of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson about how to think about America as we still work to fulfill ideals of liberty and justice.
