Americans are duty-bound to look out for one another

but their written work was extraordinary. Beginning with this Declaration, they created the great experiment in self-government called America. The foundation of that experiment is our Declaration of Independence and the truths it declares.

Along the way, America seems to have forgotten our truths and drifted without them. We need to again unite behind those words and trust in them. We need to believe them and be united in that belief.

We are a union of diverse people. We will acknowledge differences, though we must no longer separate into classes of peoples based on those differences — white, black, Hispanic, native-born, immigrant, disabled, wealthy, poor, gay and others. Those classes make us comfortable for we migrate to people similar to us, who look like us, share our joys, beliefs and frustrations, relate to our challenges and sometimes convince us we are better than others not in our class. But, America is at a point where we must grow by leaving our comfort classes and return to the knowledge of our self-evident truths.

We must see us as one, as Americans, as equals with the definition for “equal” being “as great as,” as in “one person is as great as another.”

The Creator the Founders knew is the same I know, and He said people were made in his image. There was not a ranking of one race over another or special allowance for the wealthiest or those who owned the most toys. The lines separating people are our creation, not the Creator’s.

Diversity is our greatest strength, and it is inherent in the founders’ words, for they said “all” are created equal and “they” are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. They did not say some folks are better than others and some of them were given rights by God. They said everyone.

Their actions did not match their words, but it is their words that are carved in stone.

Once we understand the words, we must demonstrate our belief and bring them to life. Start with this: While we are all born equal in the eyes of God — equal as humans — we need to recognize not all are born into equal circumstances or with an equal amount of those things that place us on the inside track in this society. But that does not mean that those born of a different race, physical abilities or economic circumstances are not all as great as the others. It means the burden has shifted.

What many of us born with these opportunities fail to realize is that implicit in these words is the fact that with rights, opportunities and standing come responsibilities. It was drilled into me at childhood that if one was born with a sound mind, a healthy body and sufficient economic means, that person is a debtor to the Creator and then to our fellow humans. It is not our economics or our physical skills, our impoverishment or disabilities that determine our value at creation; it is being a person that makes us equal.

There is no ranking of one race or economic class over another. America promises rights as a matter of birth. Those rights are to be equal. That is America. Look at the words. The words are ours.