Tomorrow we celebrate Independence Day and how our country got its start with the Declaration of Independence that was signed on July 4, 1776. 

Greene County High School History Teacher Darren Jackson says part of the language in the Declaration was “all men are created equal.” He believes that this remains as an unfulfilled promised that wasn’t true in 1776 and still is untrue today. Jackson points to the protests of racial injustice and police brutality happening across the U.S. He shares what he reminds his students when he talks about this subject.

“But it’s our duty – as Americans – to make that promise, to make that circle of who’s considered in that statement, ‘all mankind’ or ‘all men,’ to make that bigger, and bigger, and bigger (and) to make that more and more inclusive. Because if we stop doing that, then the thing that makes America, America, it really doesn’t matter anymore.”

Jackson emphasizes that it doesn’t necessarily matter where you are born – in this country or not – makes you who you are, but to accept the ideals of different people, that’s what he believes is meant to be an American.