Friday marks the start of a countdown to America’s 250th birthday next year, and rarely has the nation felt so divided. Or at least it hasn’t felt so divided since the run-up to America’s last big milestone birthday.
In 1976, 200 years after the Declaration of Independence, America celebrated its bicentennial in spectacular fashion, with parades and fireworks, festivals and historical reenactments.
Tall ships graced New York Harbor, while a stirring ceremony got underway at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. A covered-wagon train passed through Illinois on its way to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. More than 90% of the population participated in at least one 1776-related celebration. Red, white and blue were everywhere.
The bicentennial arrived during a difficult time for the country, arguably more difficult than today. In 1976, social and political changes were coming quickly in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, a lost war and a political crisis.
The nation had just witnessed the Watergate scandal, including the shocking resignation of President Richard Nixon and what was, to some, the equally shocking pardon of Nixon by hand-picked successor Gerald Ford in 1974.
The Vietnam War had ended in 1975, after many years of bitter protests, including the deaths of four students gunned down by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State University. Almost 60,000 Americans died in the war, and at least 3 million Vietnamese civilians and combatants.
At the same time, America was locked in a dangerous Cold War against the Soviet Union. Thousands of nuclear warheads on a hair trigger were aimed at each nation’s cities and military bases.
The economy wasn’t giving anyone a reason to celebrate. The Dow Jones industrial average barely cracked 1,000 that year, versus its current level of 44,000-plus. The annual inflation rate was 5.7% in 1976 and headed to double digits by the end of the decade. Today, it’s 2.4%.
Unemployment stood at 7.7%, nearly twice today’s jobless rate of 4.1%. Worse yet, the seeds had been planted for the Rust Belt recessions that devastated American manufacturing workers in the early 1980s, forever changing the face of Chicago and the Midwest.
Even the music and hairstyles were divisive in the mid-1970s, not to mention the clothes — from the powder-blue leisure suits and skin-tight disco duds to denim, denim and more denim.
Yet despite all that, Americans put aside their worries, prejudices and battle scars to come together for the country’s 200th birthday. A wave of patriotism and nostalgia swept the nation, ushering in a renewed commitment to the ideals of liberty and equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
In his aptly named autobiography, “A Time to Heal,” President Ford accurately described the bicentennial as a moment when Americans began to recover their pride and faith in the country. That was 50 years ago.
Can it happen again next year for the 250th? Yes.
The American people can come together to demonstrate their resilience and work toward a more perfect union. If that sounds impossible, consider how impossible it sounded in 1976.
Planning for the 2026 birthday celebration is in the hands of a nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar budget operating under the banner of America250.org. In a recent report to Congress, the group promised to deliver, “The largest and most inspiring commemoration in our nation’s history.”
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have agreed to serve as honorary national co-chairs, along with the former first ladies. There are big-money corporate commitments and strategic partnerships. A national celebration is planned for Washington on July 4, 2026 — not far from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where the biggest wild card in planning the event resides.
President Donald Trump, the success of this celebration in bringing together a divided country depends on you as much as anyone.
Follow a self-centered, attack-dog script, and half the country will turn away, disgusted and convinced the Republic they love is in unworthy hands.
Rise above the defensiveness and name-calling, show the capacity for leading the country as one, and perhaps the whole country will respond, as it did during the bicentennial.
This nation needs to heal, and as 1976 demonstrated, a big birthday bash can indeed help to inspire a national reconciliation. America is crying out for it now just as much as it did then. Let’s make it happen.
