Pennsylvania, democracy is our birthright. Don’t let anyone take it from us

Two years ago, I moved home to Philadelphia. It’s been decades since I navigated South Philly’s narrow horse-and-buggy streets. It’s been a generation since my sisters and I sang “Take me home, country road!” with my mother at the top of our voices when we would get lost in Amish country every Saturday.

In 2020, the middle of COVID cray-cray with the housing market as it was, I moved myself and my mother into a lovely three-story rowhouse one block from the home where she, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents lived in South Philly for three generations.

Over the years, my work as an author, activist, and leader of trainings to help clergy and community members create a more just world has taken me to New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington — all cities I loved, with people and work that I loved. While researching my family’s story for my book, Fortune, I was drawn to the community where they found love, life, and hope. During the cramped quarters of COVID quarantine, I decided to move home.

There is something about the Keystone State that rests in the center of my heart and holds me together — not unlike the way that Pennsylvania, itself, rested in the middle of the original 13 colonies, uniting them with a single declaration of independence and unity.

Democracy is the heartbeat of our state. American democracy was born here, in Pennsylvania. Yet, some politicians are trying to abandon this bedrock of our state, and our society at large, for the sake of winning one election.

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It reminds me of the Bible story of the brothers Jacob and Esau. As the older, Esau was entitled to the family birthright, including heir to the Covenant between God and Abraham. But one day, Esau came in from the fields when Jacob was cooking, and was so hungry he agreed to sell his precious birthright for a bowl of porridge.

This is what I see happening now in my beloved state of Pennsylvania, my home. Too many politicians want to sacrifice our democracy — by casting doubt on the validity of our voting machines, trying to impose limits on mail-in ballots, and making it harder for residents of some neighborhoods to vote — for a short-term gain.

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Different parties will always have divergent views on policy. One party might think the best way to a flourishing society is through public education and poverty elimination, while the other might focus on business creation and increasing capacity for individual agency. The best path to flourishing sits between the two.

But what happens when some politicians no longer envision flourishing for much of society? What happens when democracy itself is attacked?

This is not who we are, Pennsylvania.

This is not who we are, Pennsylvania.

We are the land where the Iroquois Confederacy showed us that united states are possible and federalism does not have to mean overreach.

We are the land where persecuted religious communities — the Amish, the Mennonites, the Quakers and the Huguenots, and the Baptists — found freedom.

We are the land of the Declaration of Independence, the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross’ American flag, and the U.S. Constitution.

We are the land of Harriet Tubman and William Still and Octavius V. Catto.

We are the catalyst of the Second Great Awakening, the Abolitionist movement, the birthplace of the independent Historic Black Church, and the seedbed of the anthem “We Shall Overcome!,” which was inspired by a hymn written by the leader of Tindley Temple United Methodist on South Broad Street.

We are the birthplace of the women’s empowerment movement. Sarah Forten raised the funds that built the site of the second-ever gathering of the Female Anti-Slavery Society — Pennsylvania Hall, in 1838. Lucretia Mott and the Grimke Sisters preached the vision of the beloved community from that stage, before it was destroyed by a mob four days after it opened.

And we are the land where Italian immigrants established the first Italian Catholic parish in the United States, where Chinese immigrants made a way out of no way after passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, where Puerto Rican emigrants found work and community after annexation.

We are the land where Carnegie’s steelworkers hammered out America’s industrial revolution.

We are the home of Marian Anderson, August Wilson, and Chubby Checker and The Twist.

And we are the land where President Lincoln made clear our heritage in Gettysburg:

“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain,” Lincoln bellowed to the crowd gathered to commemorate the tens of thousands of men and boys who died during that seminal Civil War battle on Pennsylvania’s soil. “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

We have always been a rowdy bunch. We are the heartbeat of the American experiment. We should be rowdy — democracy requires struggle. It is messy. It requires open dialogue and shared power, and there have been times when we have failed each other. But, Pennsylvania, we have a heritage. Democracy is our heritage.

We must protect it.

We must not sell it for a bowl of porridge.

Lisa Sharon Harper is president and founder of Freedom Road, an organization committed to shrinking the narrative gap in our nation, She is also the author of ”Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World — And How To Repair It All,” host of “Freedom Road Podcast,” and an Auburn senior fellow. www.lisasharonharper.com, @lisasharper