Why I preserve the American Dream

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” — Declaration of Independence

When I was a kid growing up in Swansea, S.C., I thought Independence Day was about baseball, neighborhood cookouts and staying up late to watch fireworks splash across the sky.

But listening to my parents and my sharecropping grandparents, I learned the truth. I learned about 56 great men crowded together in Independence Hall through a sultry Philadelphia summer, struggling to put the promise of a new nation into words.

Yes, I understand that the Founding Fathers were human beings and not the marble models they’ve been turned into. I know the angling and haggling far outweighed the high-minded rhetoric, and I recognize the clear hypocrisy of debating liberty in a nation that condoned slavery. 

But I also know that they gave us more than a series of grievances or a list of signatures at that moment. They gave us a Dream.

Freedom was won with the Treaty of Paris and America was established with the Constitution. July 4, 1776, gave us something else: the American Dream.

So when I eat my hot dog and watch my nieces and nephews playing this Sunday, I’ll also be thinking about all of my fellow Americans the parade has left behind, whose American Dream is too far out of reach.

Think about it: From home ownership to economic stability, many millennials like me are the first generation in American history to face a future bleaker than that of our parents.

More than a third of Americans between 18 and 29 report they have outstanding student debt — in some cases, crushing debt.

The median age for first-time homebuyers right now is 33. In 1981, it was 28-29.

Black homeownership is at its lowest level since the 1960s.

And, even though we may be significantly better-educated than baby boomers were at our age, millennials are earning 20 percent less.

Simply put, we’re less successful and poorer than our parents and, for some, our futures appear to be far less bright. So why are we surprised that a generation of Americans increasingly believes that the American Dream is a dream deferred? 

Here’s a frightening fact: Right now, nearly 18 million households have little or no confidence in their ability to pay rent, and roughly 20 percent of renters are behind on their payments and face possible eviction when the COVID-19 moratorium expires.

So, for too many, the American Dream has become an American Nightmare.

Yet with all of this, I still look at that 245-year-old promise and something looks back at me with glittering eyes, shining past the disappointment: It’s hope.

It’s the same hope that has sustained Americans through our nation’s darkest hours, a hope that holds us now. It’s a hope you can find not just in the patriotic parades or the brass and drums of high school marching bands, but in the pages of the American Rescue Plan or the compromise bill on infrastructure arising from the American Jobs Plan.

There is hope found in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, even though it faces an uphill battle in Congress, and there’s hope found in the spirit of men and women such as Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge, who still believe that government can be a force for change.

So, if nothing else, I have faith in us as Americans. I hold tight to that American Dream, reaffirm myself to its promise, and see the future in the children playing in the twilight beneath the fireworks’ — today’s Congreve rockets — red glare.

Happy Independence Day.

Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic political strategist, founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC, a CBS News political contributor, and a senior visiting fellow at Third Way. Follow him on Twitter @antjuansea.