RALEIGH, N.C. (NCN News) – North Carolina celebrated America’s 250th birthday with a number of events, including a celebration on the grounds of the State Capitol in Raleigh.
Governor Josh Stein spoke highlighting the ways he says North Carolinians have helped America march toward a more perfect union. He spotlighted North Carolinians’ roles in the nation’s progress through the Revolutionary War, Civil War, women’s suffrage movement, and Civil Rights Movement – each of which cemented North Carolina’s claim to be the First in Freedom state.
“Every time our nation faced a defining moment over the past 250 years, North Carolinians reached out, grabbed the baton of freedom, and carried it farther that where they found it. Now, we have that same responsibility,” Stein said. “In our democracy, there is no challenge we cannot overcome when we come together across our differences. And when we remember that freedom, justice, and opportunity bind us together as Americans, that’s how we create a ‘united’ United States of America.”
Governor Stein joined the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources for the “Capitol 250: NC Freedom Fest” Fourth of July Celebration at the State Capitol. In addition to a naturalization ceremony for new citizens, the all-day festival included a celebration of the arts, history, nature, and culture that define North Carolina’s role in the nation’s story.
Read Governor Stein’s remarks as prepared for delivery below.
Good afternoon!
And welcome to a truly special Fourth of July, a celebration of America 250 and the freedom that binds us together!
Every one of you here today braving the North Carolina heat is definitely a Patriot.
Please drink plenty of water; there are water stations all around. And if you start to feel dizzy, please find some shade and take a seat on the ground.
I thank the Color Guard and the 82nd Airborne Chorus for such beautiful music, and Secretary Cashwell, Commissioner Farley, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, Treasurer Brad Briner, and all of the hardworking state employees who planned today’s events.
And thank you Secretary Wooten for the introduction.
I also want to recognize all state and local government elected officials and public servants in the crowd; could you please raise your hands?
Thank you for your leadership and your willingness to do the important work our democracy requires.
And finally, could all veterans or active-duty servicemembers please stand or raise your hand?
Let’s give these heroes a round of applause.
I would like to offer special recognition to Major James Capers, a Medal of Honor recipient, one of only 22 North Carolinians to ever receive the honor.
Major, thank you for your extraordinary service.
I’m pleased to be joined by my wonderful wife, First Lady Anna Stein.
Earlier today, we were honored and moved to participate in a naturalization ceremony, where we welcomed 49 new Americans from 25 countries.
Their enthusiastic embrace of our country and its ideals reminds us just how blessed we are to call this remarkable nation our home.
Just around the corner of the Capitol, there’s a statue of George Washington, the man who led our troops to victory in the Revolutionary War,
the man who voluntarily left the presidency after two terms,
the man who, in his farewell address, urged unity and patriotism while warning about division.
Our founders’ places in our history are worthy of our acclaim.
After all, they proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal;
that God endowed us with rights that cannot be taken from us;
and that we the people choose our government, which exists to protect those rights.
Of course, our young nation did not fully live up to those ideals.
Over the past 250 years, generations of Americans have grabbed and carried forward the baton of freedom in pursuit of a more perfect union – one that fulfills our founding promises: freedom, equality, democracy.
And many North Carolinians have run critical legs of the race.
Months before the Declaration of Independence, a group of North Carolinians gathered in Halifax on April 12, 1776.
Led by Cornelius Harnett of Wilmington, they had the audacity to believe they could rule themselves and, to quote Thomas Paine, “to begin the world all over again.”
These patriots adopted the Halifax Resolves, making North Carolina the first state to call for freedom from the Crown, earning our proud state moniker: First in Freedom.
These Patriots risked everything for the simple belief that political power belongs to the people.
In fact, Harnett gave his life for it.
And the spark they lit in Halifax helped illuminate a nation.
Yet, the light of liberty did not extend to the millions of Americans held in slavery and many others.
In 1852, Frederick Douglass called out “the gross injustice and cruelty” of slavery but insisted that America’s salvation from its original sin could be found in the promises within the Declaration.
Douglass charged us to “stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”
Wilmington native Abraham Galloway certainly stood by those principles.
Galloway was born into slavery but escaped by hiding on a northbound ship.
During the Civil War, Galloway served as a Union spy throughout the South before returning to North Carolina to muster 3 units of the U.S. Colored Troops.
In 1864, he walked through the front door of the White House and urged President Lincoln to support Black men’s right to vote.
And a few years later as one of North Carolina’s first Black state senators, he helped make that demand a reality.
Galloway helped ratify the 14th and 15th Amendments, advancing equal protection and due process and voting rights for Black men.
He also advocated for women’s right to vote, but, once again, even as liberty’s light shone on more people, our nation still left some people in the shadows.
So other Patriots picked up the baton of freedom and carried it forward.
Gertrude Weil hailed from Goldsboro, the daughter of German Jewish immigrants who settled in North Carolina to build their lives.
Weil believed that the opportunities America had afforded her family should belong to more people, and she lived those values.
She founded the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League, and thanks to her advocacy and that of so many women across the country, in 1920 our nation finally guaranteed women’s right to vote.
A few decades later, Henry Frye, a son of cotton and tobacco farmers, a child of Greensboro, and a Korean War veteran, took up the baton of freedom.
As a young man, he was turned away at the voting booth – denied the freedoms he had fought for – because of the color of his skin.
Spurred by that injustice, he went to law school and became North Carolina’s first elected Black state representative in more than 80 years and then the state’s first Black Chief Justice.
Throughout his career, he helped purge North Carolina law of Jim Crow.
Henry Frye’s story is remarkable, but it is not singular.
Throughout our history, millions of Americans have had the boldness to believe that, even when things were at their bleakest, they could make them better – that they could turn promises on paper into freedoms fulfilled.
From the streets, from the courtrooms, from the ballot box, everyday Americans demanded that our country live up to eternal promises made 250 years ago today, often at great personal cost to themselves.
Patriots severed ties with the Crown, forged a democracy, abolished slavery, secured women’s political participation, dismantled Jim Crow, and delivered on the promise of a government of, by and for the people. All the people.
For 250 years, generations of Americans have run a historic relay race. That includes countless Tar Heels.
Every time our nation faced a defining moment, North Carolinians reached out, grabbed the baton, and carried the cause of freedom farther than where they found it.
Now, we have that same responsibility.
Will we carry our freedoms forward?
Will we leave our democracy stronger than we found it?
Here in North Carolina, we say yes.
Cornelius Harnett, Abraham Galloway, Gertrude Weil, and Henry Frye all said yes.
So must we.
And I know we will, because here in North Carolina, we love our country;
we love what our country stands for; and
we love our fellow Americans.
We are patriotic to our core.
Whether it’s servicemembers putting their lives on the line to defend our freedoms or teachers spending their own dollars to buy school supplies …
Whether it’s farmers growing our food or law enforcement officers keeping us safe…
Whether it’s factory workers making our medicines or public employees working hard to make our Fourth of July celebrations joyful…
North Carolina is home to patriots living out our American ideals, showing us how to step up for each other.
That is democracy in its most essential form – not something we save for the history books, but something we live in our daily lives.
And in our democracy, there is no challenge we cannot overcome when we come together across our differences,
when we treat our fellow Americans with dignity and respect,
when we remember that freedom, justice, and opportunity bind us together as Americans,
and when we appreciate our national motto – E Pluribus Unum – out of many, we are one.
That’s how we create a “united” United States of America.
Here in North Carolina, we are first in freedom;
home to the first public university;
first in flight;
and, thanks to the Carolina Hurricanes, first in hockey!
But being First in Freedom isn’t just about what happened 250 years ago.
It’s about what we choose to do today.
Let’s choose to pick up the baton of freedom and keep moving forward!
God bless North Carolina, and God bless the United States of America.