People usually have blended emotions about their birthdays, particularly as they age. International locations can expertise that too. For higher or worse, America is due for an enormous celebration: July 4, 2026, will mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—our nationwide semiquincentennial, within the awkward Latinate building, or “semiquin” for brief. In a great world, it might be a second of commemoration and celebration in addition to an opportunity to replicate on nationwide historical past. However to this point, the semiquin is shaping up as an embarrassingly correct reflection of America’s identification disaster.
Till just lately, America250, the federal fee charged with planning for 2026, was mired in organizational infighting and numerous disputes, together with over funding shortages and the distribution of patronage. Licensed whereas Barack Obama was president, the fee began work below Donald Trump, modified course below Joe Biden, and can spend most of 2025 answering to who is aware of which chief govt. However the challenges of 2026 lengthen properly past logistics, appropriations, and management. How do you throw a grand nationwide celebration when the nation appears unable to agree on first ideas or fundamental information? Ought to 2026 be a rah-rah pageant or a sober historical past lesson? What ought to the non-MAGA part of the American populace—that’s, at the least half of it— convey to such a patriotic event? Ought to it convey something in any respect?
Former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, now the top of America250, nonetheless believes that the nation can pull off one thing significant. The kid of a Mexican-born single mom, she recollects the 1976 bicentennial as a second when she started to really feel “delight in what it means to be American.” She needs 2026 to supply the identical type of expertise, tailor-made to a brand new technology.
And maybe it’ll. As Rios identified after we spoke, 1976 was itself hardly a second of political concord; the Vietnam Battle and Watergate had simply crashed to an in depth, proper on the heels of the turbulent Nineteen Sixties. Nor, for that matter, was American society particularly peaceful on the time of the sesquicentennial, in 1926, when the Ku Klux Klan was recurrently parading by Washington, D.C.; or on the time of the centennial, in 1876, when the nation was combating over the way forward for Reconstruction; or on the time of the semicentennial, in 1826, when a controversial populist chief, Andrew Jackson, had simply misplaced an in depth election and vowed to return for a second go-round.
What appears completely different concerning the current second is that the very concept of making an attempt to inform some type of nationwide story—a lot much less one with patriotic overtones—has itself been referred to as into query. That’s very true among the many individuals who purport to care most deeply about an sincere reckoning with the American previous. For generations, liberals leaned right into a story of gradual, if uneven, progress towards unfulfilled beliefs. However even they now not consider that the narrative of progress holds the facility it as soon as did.
There may be, after all, no nationwide narrative that may magically unite America; true nationwide consensus has by no means existed and gained’t abruptly materialize now. However throughout previous celebrations—50, 100, 150 years in the past—the individuals excluded from America’s mythic narrative managed to leverage the nation’s symbols and rhetoric and put different tales earlier than the general public. They believed that the Declaration of Independence and the flag may very well be helpful and inspirational.
At stake in 2026 is whether or not a divided nation can discover frequent symbols price embracing. But in addition at stake is whether or not those that take a vital view of America’s previous will step up proudly and say not solely what they stand in opposition to, however what they stand for within the American story.
Tright here was as soon as a typical template for the right way to have a good time a centennial: Declare greatness and throw an enormous celebration, ideally in Philadelphia. Over the previous two centuries, this mannequin has yielded its fair proportion of jingoism, together with fireworks and flags and cannon blasts. Nevertheless it has additionally offered a possibility for reexamining American historical past and for elevating questions concerning the nation’s future.
The primary try at a nationwide celebration in Philadelphia, throughout the “jubilee” yr of 1826, didn’t fairly come off. As one native newspaper famous, “The apathy of the residents” appeared to be the defining function of that exact July 4. The anniversary nonetheless occasioned at the least a little bit of nationwide self-reflection. In early 1824, anticipating the semicentennial, President James Monroe invited the Marquis de Lafayette, the teenage French hero of the American Revolution, to return to the U.S. and try what he had wrought. With a lot hoopla, Lafayette visited each state in addition to the nation’s capital. However he additionally expressed horror at sure facets of American life, particularly the South’s ongoing embrace of slavery. Throughout a go to to the Virginia plantation of former President James Madison, Lafayette pointedly reminded him of “the correct that all males, with out exception, should liberty.”
Fifty years later, on the opposite aspect of the devastating Civil Battle, Philadelphia tried once more. This time, it succeeded. With a watch to the world’s gala’s then well-liked in Europe, town was decided to placed on “the best worldwide exposition that the world had ever witnessed,” because the historian Thomas H. Keels writes—albeit an exposition with a distinctly American stamp. The nation was engaged in a fierce debate over race, political partisanship, girls’s rights, and the rising focus of capital. All of the extra purpose, organizers thought, to attempt to get everybody collectively to have a good time what there was to like about America.
They began planning a pageant for 1876 that was finally attended by some 20 p.c of the American inhabitants. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, these hundreds of thousands of holiday makers discovered a whole mini-city constructed to accommodate and show the marvels of the fashionable world. On the Primary Constructing, ticket-holders encountered their first phone, courtesy of the rising younger inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Thomas Edison despatched his newest innovations too. France contributed the upraised proper arm and torch of a proposed Statue of Liberty; guests may ascend stairs to the highest for only a dime. The sheer variety of gigantic expo buildings—249 in all—testified to the organizers’ outsize ambitions.
This frenzy of exercise and funding despatched an unmistakable message: Regardless of the Civil Battle, America was stuffed with vitality and on the rise. However the scale of the spectacle masked necessary absences. Though 26 states constructed their very own pavilions, most southern states opted out. Black residents had been banned from the expo altogether. When Frederick Douglass, an invited visitor, tried to take his seat on the dais on the opening ceremony, guards blocked him till a U.S. senator intervened. The grim politics of 1876 would quickly end in a violent and contested presidential election, and with it the top of Reconstruction within the South.
If the expo did little to resume American commitments to equality, it did present an event for sure excluded teams to restate their claims to full American citizenship, utilizing the Declaration as inspiration. On July 4, Susan B. Anthony confirmed up uninvited on the Independence Corridor ceremonies, flanked by fellow suffragists, to learn the Declaration of the Rights of Girls. In Washington, a bunch of Black males produced their very own Negro Declaration of Independence.
By 1926, the political terrain seemed completely different. White girls may lastly vote; most Black women and men within the South couldn’t. The U.S. had been by one other battle, this time in Europe, and had come out of it disillusioned. At house, throughout the battle, the nation had jailed 1000’s of dissenters. The Ku Klux Klan had constructed a strong constituency, particularly throughout the Democratic Get together. And the nation had slammed its doorways shut to most immigrants.
The organizers of the sesquicentennial celebration nonetheless doubled down on the mannequin of an enormous celebration in Philadelphia. An estimated 6 million individuals confirmed up—not as many because the organizers had hoped for, however nonetheless a considerable quantity. The marvels on show had been totally of their second: on the lowbrow finish, Jell-O and Maxwell Home espresso; on the excessive, Kandinsky and Matisse.
The exposition was billed as a “Competition of Peace and Progress,” however like its predecessors, it couldn’t assist however replicate the political tensions of its time. When the KKK put in a bid for a particular Klan day on the truthful, the mayor of Philadelphia stated sure earlier than saying no. The truthful itself was largely segregated, although Philadelphia’s Black group mobilized to make sure at the least modest entry and participation. Beneath strain, the pageant added the long run civil-rights icon A. Philip Randolph as a last-minute speaker to signify the Black group and share the platform with authorities officers on the opening ceremony. Randolph delivered a searing account of how the nation had betrayed its promise of equality for Black residents.
Philadelphia tried to present it yet one more go 50 years later—for the bicentennial, in 1976. As the massive birthday approached, although, many observers began to query whether or not the usual mannequin actually made sense anymore. “Is a World’s Honest-type Bicentennial pageant applicable for a rustic wracked with social, racial, and environmental agonies?” the author Ada Louise Huxtable requested in The New York Occasions. By 1976, President Richard Nixon’s resignation and the mounting traumas of the Seventies had helped to yield a scaled-back, privatized, and decentralized celebration. There have been some old school touches, such because the American Freedom Practice, which conveyed the nation’s founding paperwork and historic treasures from metropolis to metropolis, and the cheery tall ships that sailed between ports. However company promotion somewhat than civic function carried the day. Branded merchandise included a 1776-themed tampon disposal bag marketed with the slogan “200 Years of Freedom.”
Critics pushed again in opposition to what they described because the “Buycentennial.” Among the most theatrical resistance got here from an advert hoc group referred to as the Individuals’s Bicentennial Fee, organized by the New Left activist (and future social theorist) Jeremy Rifkin. The group held rallies at websites corresponding to Lexington and Harmony, all of the whereas claiming to be appearing within the true spirit of ’76. Rifkin thought it essential that the American left interact with somewhat than reject the narratives and symbols of the nation’s founding. Different teams, together with the Afro-American Bicentennial Company, sought to make sure that at the least some programming would replicate the Black expertise. They advocated for a extra various and inclusive account of the nation’s historical past—not one American story, however many.
A minimum of a few of that imaginative and prescient started to be realized within the years throughout and after the bicentennial. What 1976 might have lacked in spectacle, it finally made up for with quiet funding within the infrastructure of public historical past, a lot of it attuned to bringing overdue consideration to marginalized teams. In accordance with a research by the American Affiliation of State and Native Historical past, some 40 p.c of all historic establishments in existence by 1984—museums, living-history websites, native preservation societies, and the like—had been created throughout the bicentennial period.
In the summer season of 2016, whereas many of the nation was transfixed by the presidential race pitting Hillary Clinton in opposition to Donald Trump, Congress established the USA Semiquincentennial Fee, made up of personal residents, members of Congress, and federal officers. The fee was given the job of overseeing a nationwide 2026 initiative.
Its leaders took their time getting began, and Trump’s White Home supplied little steering past the implicit admonishment to make American historical past nice once more. In Philadelphia, a bunch of native boosters took issues into their very own fingers. They referred to as themselves USA250, a reputation barely distinguishable from that of the federal fee, and got down to make the case for a “blockbuster pageant.”
USA250 had no scarcity of bold, costly concepts. Starting in 2025, in line with one scheme, roving caravans would crisscross the nation, showcasing one of the best of American historical past, artwork, meals, and music. In 2026, the caravans would converge on Philadelphia. The price range that the organizers imagined was a symbolic $20.26 billion. Nonetheless, there have been now not many takers for this type of effort, even in Philadelphia. The arrival of COVID in early 2020—and the concern of super-spreader occasions it engendered—dealt one other blow to the prospect of an enormous in-person bash.
As for the federal fee, it swiftly descended right into a morass of fees and countercharges over course of, favoritism, hiring, gender discrimination, and price range choices. In June 2022, Meta pulled out of a $10 million sponsorship deal, reportedly owing to the fee’s “management dysfunction.” Across the similar time, a number of feminine executives give up the fee and filed swimsuit. They described a Gilded Age stage of “cronyism, self-dealing, mismanagement of funds, doubtlessly illegal contracting practices and wasteful spending”—to not point out intercourse discrimination and a poisonous work atmosphere. Within the midst of the meltdown, the Biden White Home stepped in to nominate Rosie Rios as the brand new fee chair. By then, the clock was right down to lower than 4 years.
One of many federal fee’s signature initiatives, America’s Tales, is radically decentralized—much less a top-down grasp plan than a nationwide Instagram feed. Its web site encourages Individuals to ship in private reflections concerning the nation’s previous, current, and future within the type of songs, poems, private essays, images, audio recordings, and movies. The said aim is to create “essentially the most inclusive commemoration in our historical past,” one through which “no story is just too small” to matter. Rios views the emphasis on social media, in addition to on range of expertise, as a approach to appeal to constituencies which may in any other case look elsewhere—notably younger individuals, who usually appear to suppose that the previous has little to supply.
R. Scott Stephenson, the CEO of Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution, describes the federal technique as a “StoryCorps mannequin” of historic commemoration. He worries that such a decentralized strategy gained’t rise to the second. “If it’s nearly everyone telling their story,” he asks, what’s to convey everyone collectively? His issues are echoed by many within the public-history sphere. In the intervening time, although, virtually no one sees any prospect for a single huge in-person celebration harking back to the extravaganzas of the previous.
Nobody, that’s, apart from Donald Trump. Alone amongst main political figures, Trump has seized the early momentum to supply a grand, centralized semiquincentennial imaginative and prescient. In Might 2023, he launched a marketing campaign video introducing the concept of a Salute to America 250, the “most spectacular celebration” the nation has ever identified. Although billed as a critical celebration of the world’s oldest democracy, the plan comprises no scarcity of reality-TV touches. One proposal is a Patriot Video games, through which high-school athletes could be pitted in opposition to each other in interstate Olympics-style competitors. One other is the Nationwide Backyard of American Heroes, a long-standing pet mission through which Trump hopes to pick “the best Individuals of all time” to be honored in a Washington statuary park. The centerpiece of the celebration could be the Nice American State Honest, an 1876 expo-style gathering to be held in Iowa. “It’ll be one thing!” he promised.
The video’s launch produced loads of vital commentary from MAGA skeptics. However, to paraphrase Trump, the Nice American State Honest would at the least be one thing: a centered, nationwide, in-person commemoration with a transparent message about the place the nation has been and the place it’s going. No matter its different virtues could also be, the individualized, localized, “invitation” strategy evades any such nation-defining mission.
The issue is, many Individuals don’t know what they’d be celebrating. On the left, rejecting conventional patriotism has develop into de rigueur: by kneeling for the nationwide anthem, dismissing the Founders as enslavers, and expressing unease on the prospect of flying an American flag. Seeing left or liberal activists deploying the photographs and concepts of the revolution for their very own functions is much much less frequent than it was once. One consequence could also be that many individuals who care a few vital, nuanced view of the American previous will merely choose out of 2026. If that occurs, who can be left in control of defining what founding-era beliefs corresponding to “independence,” “revolution,” “We the Individuals,” and “the final Welfare” are presupposed to imply within the twenty first century?
The duty of figuring out a usable previous is after all a lot simpler for Trump and his MAGA coalition than for individuals who search a real reckoning with the nation’s historical past of injustice. Trump has a transparent view and a easy message: that solely sure individuals rely, that the previous was higher than the current, and that U.S. historical past was a story of triumph till roughly the Nineteen Sixties.
Trump’s views are embodied within the work of a bunch referred to as the 1776 Fee, appointed close to the top of his presidency. Its creation (and identify) was partly a response to The New York Occasions Journal’s 1619 Venture, with its emphasis on slavery and the Black expertise. It was additionally a bid to place the Trump stamp on the founding legacy. “As we strategy the 250th anniversary of our independence, we should resolve to show future generations of Individuals an correct historical past of our nation in order that all of us be taught and cherish our founding ideas as soon as once more,” the fee’s report said—on the similar time selling its personal exclusionary and distorted imaginative and prescient of the previous, one through which the Founders would clearly have opposed progressive social coverage, affirmative motion, and all types of identification politics.
Professional historians have scorned The 1776 Report as right-wing propaganda somewhat than something resembling precise historical past. However students have usually hesitated to supply another nationwide narrative as an alternative. By and enormous, they don’t view themselves as being within the enterprise of nationalism or patriotism; their mission is usually to inform the reality as they see it. Inside academia, the nation-state is itself usually seen as a suspect type of social group and energy with a doubtful observe report.
However on this second of democratic disaster—and democratic chance—there’s something dissatisfying about sidestepping the problem of 2026, with its implicit name to create a usable however considerate nationwide narrative. Throughout Trump’s time period in workplace, the historian Jill Lepore chastised fellow teachers for abandoning the mission of a nationwide story simply when it was wanted most. “Writing nationwide historical past creates loads of issues,” she argued. “However not writing nationwide historical past creates extra issues, and people issues are worse.”
Developing with an sincere however coherent imaginative and prescient for 2026 is a real problem. For the previous 60 years, a lot of American historic scholarship has been about exposing a darker story behind self-congratulatory myths. As a believer in that effort, I’ve lengthy shared the left’s ambivalence about patriotic symbols: the flag, the Founders, the nationwide anthem, the Fourth of July. At this time, although, I really feel an urgency to reclaim and redefine all this stuff, lest they be ceded to these darker forces historians like to write down about.
The actual fact is, Individuals have a reasonably good origin story, as such issues go: centrally, a revolution on behalf of human equality, regardless of all of its flaws and blind spots and limits. “As regards to equality,” the political theorist Danielle Allen has argued, “no extra necessary sentence has ever been written” than Jefferson’s assertion that “all males are created equal.” For its second—and even for ours—it was a daring and revolutionary assertion.
Actions for equality, racial justice, and human rights have lengthy taken benefit of that legacy. The abolitionists of the 1830s invented the Liberty Bell as a logo of human freedom, seeing in its inscription to “proclaim liberty all through all of the land” a helpful hyperlink to each the previous and the long run. The labor radicals of the late nineteenth century claimed Jefferson and Thomas Paine together with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Discovering a stake within the American story has all the time been tougher for these intentionally excluded from the Declaration’s imaginative and prescient: girls and sexual minorities, Black communities, Indigenous nations. In 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered his well-known deal with asking “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” His reply was that it marked a day of mourning, not celebration. Nonetheless, Douglass seized the second to strain white residents to stay as much as their “saving ideas,” noting that the Founding Fathers understood that “there may be all the time a treatment for oppression,” even when they didn’t observe that perception to its logical conclusion.
What we’re witnessing now, with respect to America’s 250th, is thus an odd flip of occasions. To various levels, abolitionists, suffragists, labor leaders, and civil-rights activists had been prepared and in a position to harness America’s mythic rhetoric and said ideas to advance their causes. They embraced and invented cherished nationwide symbols. And but in the present day, many who profess to consider in human equality and social justice appear to have little use for the American origin story and its most venerable phrases and figures.
Why not reclaim them? The American revolution was, in spite of everything, a revolution—not in each respect the one you or I may need needed, however an unlimited stride towards equality. And revolution itself is an inherently malleable idea, made to be renewed and redefined with every technology. One needn’t put on a tricorne hat or fly the celebrities and stripes with the intention to have a good time the unlikely second when a bunch of personal residents organized, dreamed huge, and defeated the world’s strongest empire.
Although, now that I consider it, why not put on the hat and fly the flag? Regardless of in the present day’s political optics, neither one truly belongs to the devotees of MAGA rallies. Maybe these on the left can at the least seize the second to open up the dialog over what, if something, actually makes America nice—and to show some precise historical past. In the event that they don’t, the that means of 2026—and of American patriotism—can be determined for them.
