Commentary: Coming anniversary is a chance to reunite as Americans

I remember our nation's Bicentennial. (My kids would suggest that it was the Centennial in 1876 I recall, but don't listen to them.)

I recall fireworks beyond anything I could imagine, tall ships on TV, special quarters, and a general sense of pride and patriotism everywhere.

I only knew as much history as a fourth grader was supposed to, but I grasped that our nation had had 200 birthdays and deserved a party worthy of the occasion.

Paul Copenhaver primes his musket with a powder horn as costumed damsels watch atop the Salem Senior Citizens float during Roanoke's Bicentennial Parade on July 5, 1976.

John Long

Now we stand on the cusp of another milestone anniversary: 250 years of American nationhood is just around the corner. Not many are thinking of it yet, but I’ll go ahead and say it: we’ll only ever get one Semiquincentennial, so let's get it right.

I had the pleasure last week of sitting in a regional meeting with the folks organizing Virginia's commemoration of the 250th. There is a national commission, I understand, but it's been mired in controversies and squabbling, so Virginia proudly has stepped forward to take the lead.

That Revolution almost a quarter of a millennium ago was, after all, a Virginia Revolution in profound ways. As one slogan of the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission puts it: "Virginia's history is America's story."

Co-chairing the commission are state Sen. Mamie Locke and Del. Terry Austin of Botetourt. But I was happy to see an old friend as the executive director: Cheryl Wilson, who previously headed Virginia's statewide commemorations of the Civil War 150th and the anniversaries of World War I and World War II. Cheryl gets interesting things done well.

Plans are of course still developing, but the general idea (like in previous commemorations) is to task the localities in Virginia to work with the commonwealth in marking our 250th.

Each locality has been invited to form its own committee and plan ways to tell its own important stories, as threads in a larger tapestry. Even if a town or county was founded generations after the Revolution, it has a unique history to celebrate and demonstrable links back to the founding.

Of course, there will be statewide happenings too. A first-rate signature exhibition will be jointly developed between the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. A smaller, but no less impressive, mobile exhibit will crisscross the commonwealth in a tractor-trailer; a movable panel exhibit will be made available (free of charge) to small museums and libraries.

There will be large signature events and conferences, usually built around major anniversaries (the commission will last until 2031, the 250th of Yorktown). One such event has already happened.

In Williamsburg this past March a conference marked the 250th anniversary of Virginia's Committee on Correspondence, which accelerated the process of uniting the disparate colonies to stand for their right of self-government. It wasn't yet a revolution, but it was a step toward it.

(By the way, that's what VA250 is trying to duplicate in a peaceful, commemorative way: get the 50 states moving in the same direction. Thirty-some states were represented at this conference.)

All of this makes sense, not only in a historical way but also financially. History for Virginia brings tourism; tourists bring dollars. The previous commemorations Cheryl oversaw resulted in $1.5 billion in economic impact on Virginia, creating 22,000 jobs and bringing in $50 million in tax revenues for localities.

But also it all makes sense for promoting American citizenship. The Union that resulted from the Revolution was far from perfect (and the commission won't pretend it was). But it would strive to become better, and largely has. One statement Cheryl used struck me: "In Virginia, the American Revolution was a war — but more than a war. It was a Revolution of Ideas."

The ideas leading to and resulting from the American Revolution were truly revolutionary, and on a global scale. They inspired Bolivians in 1825 and Hungarians in 1848 and Chinese in 1989.

They should inspire us more than they seem to. We all lament that we’re such a divided people and that the divisions become too strident too often. We were never meant to agree on everything, but there are some ideas on which we should instinctively find common ground: self-evident truths that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

VA250 is our chance to remind ourselves what it means to be Americans. If we miss that chance, we will be much poorer for it.

Christina Koomen, (540) 981-3402

[email protected]

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