Words That Built a Nation: Voices of Democracy That Have Shaped American History is a remarkable volume that delivers on the promise of its title. Forty-one documents highlight the contributions of individuals who addressed significant issues over the centuries since 1620 when the Mayflower Compact stated the colonists “solemnly & mutualy in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant & combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick.” We know, looking back, that that “body politick” set the counterpoint for points of view in our history; newcomers and minority voices continued to strive to distinguish themselves in a country whose stated values were always those of freedom and equality under the law.
From the advice of Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanack, Abigail Adams’s exhortation to her husband to “Remember the ladies,” Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers in 1788, and Frederick Douglass’s The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro in 1852 that clearly identified the sorrow of the internal slave trade, entries bring readers through to Chief Red Cloud’s searing Statement on the Causes of Wounded Knee in 1890, President Woodrow Wilson’s The Fourteen Points denoting a plan to Congress for how the world might be “fit and safe to live in” following World War I, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka outlawing racial segregation in public schools in 1954, and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring alerting the world to the dangers of industrial pollution in 1962. “Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed” were the words of United States astronauts as the first human beings landed on the Moon in 1969, watched by 600 million people worldwide; Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman elected to the U. S. House of Representatives and the first to campaign for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972, declaring she faced more resistance as a female than as a Black person; Ronald Reagan provided a challenge to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall” dividing East and West Berlin in 1987; at the United Nations Conference on Women in 1995, First Lady Hillary Rodman Clinton addressed the urgent need for women’s rights—human rights—to be respected and protected worldwide; George W. Bush’s Address to the Nation following the September 11 attacks endeavored to identify a “proper balance between national security and civil liberties” at a perilous time; and in 2008, Senator Barack Obama conveyed in his Speech on Race that his own genetic makeup was emblematic of our country: “the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts—that out of many we are truly one.”
The forty-one statements in this compilation include cornerstones of our nation (for example, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, pivotal Amendments and two of Abraham Lincoln’s addresses) and responses to landmark events that variously unified or divided our nation—a nation that has struggled to hold true to the values of freedom and equality. Every entry includes original words, archival photos, a profile of the speaker, a short historical context and a reflective response indicating the import in the larger context—all setting the stage for fruitful insights and conversation.
To use the word of one book reviewer, this volume is nothing short of “breathtaking.” Our history is complicated. The fabric of our nation’s democracy is woven with many threads of hope and human endeavor. Authors Marilyn Miller, Ellen Scordato, and Dan Tucker, with illustrator Mary Kate McDevitt, present a truly inspiring and informative history lesson for ages 10 and up.
Given that public libraries are closed at this time, we suggest online book ordering at bookshop.org/shop/harvardbookstore
