Last week, on a trip to Savannah, Georgia, I found myself standing at the corner of Oglethorpe Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the intersection, and I felt the weight of history pressing down on that spot. The street names are a metaphor in one of America’s oldest cities, where the past is never far from view. In Savannah’s history, beauty and brutality entwine like the Spanish moss that drapes its live oaks.
Oglethorpe founded Georgia in 1733. He was initially complicit in systems of oppression, including the Atlantic slave trade. Savannah was one of the most active ports receiving prisoners at the end of their “middle passage.” But later, after witnessing the moral rot that slavery inflicted, Oglethorpe became one of the earliest advocates for abolition. King, born two centuries later, dedicated his life to dismantling the structures of oppression that had calcified into American bedrock.
Standing there, I couldn’t help but see this street corner as a physical manifestation of our national paradox, the constant tension between our worst impulses and our highest ideals.
We all know how this contradiction runs through every chapter of our story. Thomas Jefferson penned words about equality and inalienable rights while enslaving over 600 human beings throughout his lifetime. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, yet within a decade, Black Codes and convict leasing created new systems of forced labor. We fought a world war against fascism with a segregated military, then returned home to a nation where those same soldiers couldn’t sit at lunch counters beside the people they’d fought to protect.
The GI Bill opened pathways to college and homeownership for millions, but discriminatory implementation meant Black veterans were systematically excluded from these opportunities, creating a wealth gap that reverberates today. We built the Interstate Highway System to connect our nation while bulldozing thriving Black neighborhoods to do it.
Our contradictions are brutally visible in our treatment of Native peoples. The ideals of liberty coexisted with policies of forced removal, such as the Trail of Tears that passed through the state of Georgia. Under the banner of divine providence, we displaced entire nations, stripping them of their lands and cultures. Later, federal programs sought to “assimilate” Native children by removing them from their families and erasing their languages in boarding schools.
Many immigrant stories reveal similar paradoxes. The Statue of Liberty promised refuge — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — yet waves of newcomers faced hostility and exclusion. We celebrated Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty while turning away ships of Jewish refugees. Chinese laborers who helped build the transcontinental railroad were later targeted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Irish and Italian immigrants were met with suspicion and violence. During World War II, Japanese Americans were interned behind barbed wire, not for crimes but for ancestry. Each generation of immigrants, it seems, has had to fight to prove its belonging in a nation supposedly founded on welcome.
Even our progress reveals the pattern. Brown v. Board of Education declared school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, yet decades later, our schools remain deeply divided by race and opportunity. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected ballot access, yet we’re still fighting over voter ID laws, polling place closures, and redistricting schemes designed to dilute minority votes. We elected our first Black president, then watched as hate crimes and white nationalist organizing surged in response.
And the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. Federal Reserve data shows that the richest 10 percent of American households now own over two-thirds of the nation’s total wealth. Even more telling, the top 1 percent holds 31% percent of our total wealth, just slightly less than the entire bottom 90 percent of U.S. households.1
And yet, I remain hopeful, because America has always been a story of striving. The arc of our history may be jagged, but it bends toward justice when enough of us pull together. From abolitionists and suffragists to civil rights marchers, from modern activists for climate justice to the organizers for LGBTQ+ rights, we continue to strive.
I felt this strongly in my recent participation at a No Kings protest. Progress has never been a gift from the powerful and wealthy. We who believe in a more perfect union must demand it! This is vital to remember at our current juncture in American history, when oligarchs are more brazenly exerting their influence over every aspect of our culture.
As I stood at that intersection in Savannah, the hum of traffic surrounding me, I imagined Oglethorpe and King in conversation, two men separated by centuries yet ultimately united by conscience. Perhaps they would agree that the true test of a nation is not whether it avoids hypocrisy, but whether it keeps pushing toward redemption.
We are still standing at that intersection between what America has been and what it can yet become. And if we listen closely, we will hear Dr. King’s voice reminding us that the dream is not dead.
It is waiting for us to live it out.
1 – Wealth Inequality – Inequality.org
Krin Van Tatenhove - Words & Images 