How Far We Have Left to Go

Today is November 23, 2006. It is Thanksgiving. Last night I was reminded of something that was written one hundred and forty-three years and four days ago. The text is below.

FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

We have come a long way in those 143 years, and much of “the unfinished work” and “great task remaining before us” are still left unfinished, still remains before us. We have made fantastically great strides toward true equality, but there are still many left to take before we forever banish the fear and hatred that underlies inequalities from our nation’s hearts. It was a daunting task in 1863, and it is a daunting task in 2006.

Today, on Thanksgiving, give thanks for how far we’ve come, while solemnly remembering how far we have yet to go.