The Adjacent States of America
The United States Constitution was written by white land-owning men for white land-owning men. If you are reading this, now, as a white land-owning man in the USA, congratulations. This nation was meant for you. The Constitution was not written for the indigenous peoples of the “Americas” or Turtle Island as many of those indigenous called it. They were considered sovereign tribes, but not citizens. It would take 136 years for the indigenous of this nation to be so recognized. The Constitution was not written for women; the law largely regarded them as subjects or property, and they were not allowed to vote. It would take 130 years for the 19th Amendment to allow them to do so. The Constitution was not written for the enslaved. Twenty-five of the fifty-five delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention and ratified the document owned slaves. The Three-Fifths Clause stated that enslaved people would be counted as three-fifths of a free person when determining a state’s population, giving slaveholding states more power in Congress. It would take 77 years before a civil war abolished slavery.
The United States Constitution remains the most profitable act of land piracy in history. But the document that has subsequently become the basis of our laws is merely paper. Very convincing, very old paper. The only reason that our nation now equally enjoys the freedoms of democratic elections, citizenship, and freedom from bondage is because good people fought and died to make it so, over the course of these many years. To amend that piece of paper. Because although it was not written for the disenfranchised, those peoples worked together to be included as full partners in this ongoing experiment in democracy.
For all the exclusivity stitched into its original text, the nation’s Constitution has proven malleable enough to bend — sometimes by force of arms, sometimes by force of words — toward a broader understanding of who deserves liberty and justice. It didn’t come easily. It never does. At every turn, marginalized voices rose up against the injustice woven into the very fabric of the founding documents. From the earliest days of Indigenous resistance, to the work of abolitionists and the fight for women’s suffrage, each generation of activists has hacked away at that towering edifice of exclusion.
One of those forces for change, at times labeled a “terrorist” by both his contemporaries and later historians, was John Brown. Renowned for his unwavering and militant opposition to slavery, Brown’s 1859 raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry became a pivotal flashpoint in America’s march toward Civil War. For some, Brown was a martyr-the embodiment of moral urgency against the evil of human bondage. For others, he was a criminal who sought to incite insurrection. This stark divide underscores how figures who challenge entrenched systems of oppression often pay a steep price, facing vilification or deification depending on who writes the story. Whether one labels John Brown a terrorist or a freedom fighter, his impact forced the nation to confront its original sin of slavery, pushing the country closer to a cataclysmic reckoning it could not avoid.
The Civil War and the post-war Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) cracked open the door-legally abolishing slavery and promising equal protection under the law. The women’s suffrage movement marched, rallied, and risked imprisonment to secure the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing half the population a voice at the ballot box. The Supreme Court rulings and legislative breakthroughs of the Civil Rights Movement (like Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act) forced federal and state governments to dismantle codified segregation. In the face of continued betrayal, Indigenous communities kept pushing: from the American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 to modern-day sovereignty cases, they fought for-and continue to defend-the inalienable rights that were trampled under Manifest Destiny.
Before there was a Constitution, there was the Declaration of Independence. Often heralded as the spiritual prelude to our founding laws, it raises the question: Is the Declaration a legally binding document, or merely a failsafe -a moral lightning rod meant to stave off any return to the tyranny of kings? While not law per se, its stirring phrases about inalienable rights continue to serve as a rallying cry against injustice, reinforcing the notion that if government becomes destructive to these ends, the people have not just the right but the duty to alter or abolish it. This idea resonates through every movement that has demanded America live up to its self-professed ideals.
That struggle is not frozen in history. It courses through the present, propelled by countless determined communities who refuse to accept half-measures and token gestures. Even now, the fight continues to protect voting rights, to uphold bodily autonomy, to end systemic racism, and to demand that LGBTQ+ citizens enjoy the same liberties promised by that centuries-old piece of parchment. Because “We the People” is an ideal that must be expanded by each generation, or it risks collapsing under the weight of hypocrisy.
The truth is, the Constitution did not magically morph into a beacon of universal freedom. Over the decades, it was prodded, argued over, bled for, and incrementally amended to include those whom the Founders excluded outright. And that process is not finished. Every protest sign, every vote cast, every court challenge, every earnest conversation-each is part of the grand continuum of people struggling, day by day, to ensure that democracy isn’t a hollow promise but a lived reality.
So, if you sit here now, reading this-no matter your race, gender, or creed-recognize that your rights are inherited from centuries of unimaginable courage and sacrifice. Just as the Founders shaped a flawed starting point, it’s on us to keep shaping it, to keep building on every victory and pushing beyond every setback. Because the fight for true equality isn’t a period at the end of a sentence; it’s a perpetual call to action -one that demands our vigilance, our empathy, and our willingness to stand up for one another, every single day.
Our strength has always been our unity-not the unity of sameness, but the unity of a people who struggle, fight, and dream together. Every act of division, every embrace of hate, every attempt to push one another into categories of lesser or undeserving does nothing but weaken us, driving us farther from the power that if ever made this nation great in the first place. That power is not wealth, nor dominance, nor the fleeting illusion of superiority-it is the power of individuals bound together in the mighty work of building something greater than themselves. A republic, if we can keep it. Every time we give in to fear, every time we let hate fester, every time we allow the forces of division to tear at the fragile seams of our democracy, we make the task of keeping it harder. But every time we choose justice over cruelty, empathy over apathy, and unity over resentment, we reclaim the true strength of this nation. America is not just an experiment-it is a promise. A promise that is only kept when we remember that we are all of us in this together.
Originally published at http://www.gonzotheater.com on February 1, 2025.
