Seeing the True Nature of American Freedom

Sharing a great article by my dear friend and teacher Louis Columbus

The 4th of July's many festivities from parades, to fireworks displays, from entire blocks getting together to decorate in red, white and blue to even one story I heard of a daughters' friend painting the family beagle red, white and blue while he slept on the back porch this afternoon all make this such a genuine American experience.

Over the last several years I've taught more students in international business and strategy courses than any other time.  Like anyone, they love a good party that is nationwide, and the 4th is a reason from them to celebrate their freedoms here in America too. 

I am Learning From My Students What The Reality of Freedom Is

It is quite moving to be running a class in international business and have a young student under 30 tell you about how there were wars raging in her home nation of Bosnia and one wrong street selection on the way home from school could have gotten her killed. She is Serbian. 

There are students from China, some from Hong Kong, others from Beijing, who are remarkable in their writing abilities yet still afraid to speak.  Their tales of harmonization in Beijing and the tight lid the government has on businesses there, many of which are run by their parents and families, are moving. 

Or the students from the Middle East who faced persecution because of their religion and their families' beliefs and businesses.

I've had more than a dozen Vietnamese students, who as toddlers and even infants, escaped that nation on boats, drifting in the South China Sea waiting for the U.S. Navy to show up and rescue them.  Clearly, the Navy did a great job, they saved tens of thousands of lives in that region and I am sure they still do.

There are those students from Russia too. Some from parents who were members of the party and others barely scraping enough together to get out. Talk of how even party members must abide by rationing is fascinating.

Seeing Freedom In A New Way

Just out of curiosity, I took each significant speech in America in the last 217 years and quickly ran them through Wordle this morning.

Here's what I found out.  In the most troubling and most difficult of times in this nations' history, freedom is the catalyst so many of our leaders have turned to as our core strength, our catalyst.  It is what many have come back to as the reverberating strength of America.

From Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech The Four Freedoms given on January 6, 1941 to the many speeches that John Fitzgerald Kennedy gave, including Ich bin ein Berliner ("I am a 'Berliner'") delivered on June 26, 1963 in West Berlin, freedom reverberates through these speeches.  Faced with an increasingly aggressive Russia who appears intent on war, President Kennedy chooses this speech to come back to America's greatest strength and contribution to the world, freedom.  Below is the Wordle of this speech.

The speech with the greatest mention of freedom in the history of the United States from this analysis isn't an elected politician, President, military leader, or a powerful cabinet member.  It is a southern minister who in 1954, became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Far from the media centers of the time, Dr. Martin Luther King showed in his life just how truly different this American brand of freedom is.  Below is Wordle from his I Have A Dream Speech. 

In the story of a minister from Montgomery, Alabama whose impact in America is still being felt today is the story of what American freedom is really all about.  Reaching out, inclusive, celebrating diversity and looking to strengthen others by building bridges out to them, this is America at its best.

Bottom line: No nation is without fault, but if you want to see the true nature of American freedom, meet eyes with someone today who had to fight to get here, or who is putting their life on hold to serve, or who has served earlier.  In that moment, you will know the true nature of American freedom.