In her concurring opinion in Trump v. Barbara, Justice Jackson references Frederick Douglass:

After the Civil War, Fredrick Douglass frequently reflected on the events of the time through the lens of biblical stories. In one speech, Douglass described how God leveled Sodom and Gomorrah on account of sin, and how, in the aftermath, Abraham stood atop a nearby mountain to survey what remained. “[T]he orator used the image of Abraham looking down upon the destroyed landscape to demand that Americans look down upon their own recent self-destruction, and all but unjustified survival, and remember.”57 Douglass declared that his own aim was to “‘show that nations should have memories.’” (Quoted from D. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom)

While I collect my thoughts for an Independence Day post, I thought I’d provide links to a few items that others might find interesting and that go to the point of our remembering broadly and forthrightly.

• The New York Times Magazine has a great compact series, Visions of America: The Revolution Through the Eyes of Everyday Founders.  The articles draw out the complexities of the Revolution and the beginnings of the Republic.
• If you haven’t read the Declaration of Independence recently, it’s well worth a look.
• A critical voice for the spirit of ongoing revolution belongs, of course, to Douglass, and his “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” is an excellent example. Here’s the text. Or, if you prefer, here is a reading by the incomparable (U Michigan alum 🙂 James Earl Jones. 
• Susan B. Anthony’s “On Women’s Right to Vote” is another essential classic of the pursuit of equality and liberty.
• As is Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman”: one version here, another here.
• Chief Joseph is mostly remembered for his surrender speech, “I Will Fight No More Forever,” but let’s not forget his address to Congress arguing the extension of civil liberties.
• Another must-read, for our deeper national memory, is James Baldwin’s searing account of lynching and white supremacy — and its accompanying impotence — in “Going to Meet the Man.” 
• And, on the sad subject of lynching, here is Bille Holiday’s transcendent rendition of Abel Meerpol’s “Strange Fruit.”
• If you don’t know the eclectic chamber music group PubliQuartet, you’re missing out.  Their work, like “What Is American,” are wonderfully complex meditations on, well, us.

There is much more that could be listed. Please give your ideas in the comments!