America’s Purpose is Freedom
By James M Rink
Think quick. What one word best describes America?
Most people think of the word, Freedom. Freedom is America’s Purpose.
However today we are living in a divided America. I believe many Americans don’t feel as free as others do. Many feel lost and marginalized while others feel free.
Has America lost its sense of Purpose, it’s freedom?
This is a message and a calling to Americans, CEOs, Business leaders, Millennials, Gen Z workers and parents.
I believe America is divided and dysfunctional today because it has forgotten it’s Purpose of Freedom. To become functional, we must realign our individual life’s Purpose to America’s Purpose of Freedom.
We begin by admitting that all Americans have a Purpose and that all Americans share in its Purpose of Freedom.
Today, there is a movement in American businesses for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Earlier this year, I wrote a blog on the topic, “Your Purpose Promotes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”.
In business, I help people discover, define and live their life’s Purpose and help align it with their coworkers and the company’s purpose. This creates Purpose, connection and engagement between people at work.
American business founders like Walt Disney, Steve Jobs and John Nordstrom all used Purpose and Values Statements to lead business dreams into empires.
America’s founders did too.
1776, America’s founding documents are our Articles of Freedom which include three documents.
-Declaration of Independence, America’s freedom from the British rule
-Bill of Rights, American’s rights of freedom and the pursuit of happiness
-Constitution, America’s governing of its values and Purpose of Freedom
America thrived under our new world order of Freedom. American’s right to ‘pursuit of happiness’ created an entrepreneurial spirit and birthed the American Dream of being able to own land, your own home and your own business or work for an American business. It created massive wealth through American Businesses.
I believe however, that America’s forefather’s greatest flaw was in the writing our Articles of Freedom and NOT outlawing slavery which had already begun in 1619. This made America’s Purpose of Freedom for White people only and America’s Purpose of Slavery for many African Americans.
This gave White American business owners an unfair advantage of Free labor. The short-term profits however created a long-term debt and dysfunction fighting against America’s Purpose of Freedom and marginalizing African Americans.
In 1854 in Peoria, Indiana, one man championed this injustice. Abraham Lincoln was a self-educated poor man who became a lawyer and then a politician. In his "Peoria Speech", Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery and continued his protest of slavery into his Presidency in 1861. 39 days into President Lincoln’s term, America’s division over slavery started the Civil War.
America’s Purpose of Freedom was put to the test due to a flaw of oversight in our Constitution, one of our Articles of Freedom. The Civil War left an estimate of 750,000 soldiers dead (both white and black), along with an undetermined number of civilians by the time slavery ended in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ending slavery.
However free black Americans were, it was not enough to change some white Americans beliefs that blacks were to share in America’s Purpose of Freedom. This created a new dysfunction and the birth of Civil Rights.
In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech was a message and a calling to integrate black and white into America’s Purpose of Freedom. From the steps of President Lincoln’s Memorial in Washington, DC, Dr. King’s call is relevant today…
“…when we allow Freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we're free at last!"
This is my message and calling.
I am a white man who is broken hearted by our divided America.
For us to heal we must return to America’s Purpose of Freedom for all. I do believe that we would not be in a divided America today between Black and White if our forefathers would have ended slavery in 1776.
I have no idea what it feels like to be black in America.
I do know what it feels like to be robbed, to be lied to, falsely accused in court, cheated, had my family under attack and be trespassed on by other Americans.
I do know that when I have been trespassed on, I have found power and strength in the words of a Black man who was unfairly imprisoned for 27 years in his quest for Freedom of Black people. Nelson Mandela said…
“You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.” “Forgiveness liberates the soul, it removes fear. That's why it's such a powerful weapon.”
If Americans, black and white, can value their own life’s Purpose and one another’s, find forgiveness to past trespasses and align our individual life’s Purpose to America’s Purpose of Freedom, perhaps we can heal our divide today.
If this blog speaks to you, I believe it is because your Purpose is calling you to a better life. I invite you to follow me on social media @JamesMRink and subscribe to my blogs and learn at PurposeOfYou.com
Cheryl Desantis - Chief People Officer at SmileDirectClub calls Purpose of You is THE team development opportunity for our times.
