For years I have wanted to go see the Liberty Bell. It has had a deep resonance for me. Perhaps because I was an American Studies major. Perhaps because I came East as a Girl Scout in 1975 ahead of the Bicentennial. Perhaps because its message, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land…” is from Leviticus and really rings true to me.
Today was the day. Finally. We had perfect weather and a lovely lunch at the City Tavern–another place on my “bucket list” since working for SAP in Newtown Square and since being a colonial re-enactor.
But here is what I forgot, that made today so very special. The Liberty Bell belongs to all people, not just Americans. The promise of freedom, such a Jewish value resonates (I know, I need to get away from these bell puns!) with everyone. The promise of freedom gave hope to slaves and abolitionists, to suffragettes and civil rights workers, the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King. To Nelson Mandela.
I can’t get away from Africa…Nelson Mandela said that The Liberty Bell is “a very significant symbol for the entire democratic world.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, July 4, 1993.) This year he was awarded the Philadelphia Martin Luther King Association Drum Major of Freedom award. Accepting the award posthumously, “The family of Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa deeply appreciate the honor being bestowed on Jan. 20, on the father of our nation by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence. Dr. King and Nelson Mandela dreamed the same dream. None did more in their generation than Dr. King and Nelson Mandela to bend the long arm of the universe towards justice and advance humanity along our shared long walk to freedom.”
When walked around Independence Mall we heard Hebrew, French, Chinese, Italian, German. We saw Girl Scouts and school groups, one group even had on 2014 US Road Scholar T-Shirts. The history is important. It is palpable. But it is not just history. It is history still being made. Peter Paul and Mary sang it this way:
If I had a bell
I’d ring it in the morning
I’d ring it in the evening … all over this land,
I’d ring out danger
I’d ring out a warning
I’d ring out love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.
…
It’s a bell of freedom
Freedom is a gift, a promise, a right. Something that needs to be guarded and worked towards. The Israelites in the desert knew that as they stood before Sinai. The abolitionists knew that. Susan B. Anthony knew that. King and Mandela knew that. Ours is not to finish the task. Neither are we free (there’s that word again) to ignore.
It is a dream that cannot be ignored in this city of brotherly love…for all the inhabitants of our land.