Please click the link to watch Rev. Cynthia’s video recording of this sermon.

First, some history. The American Battlefield Trust says, “On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation designating ‘the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving.’” Lincoln’s announcement marked the culmination of a multi-decade campaign by Sarah Josepha Hale to make Thanksgiving into a national holiday….” (from Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving | American Battlefield Trust).

And who was Sarah Josepha Hale? She was an editor of American Ladies’ Magazine and then—after a merger—of Godey’s Lady’s Book. The Almanac website says, “Throughout her time as an editor, Hale had written hundreds of letters to governors, ministers, newspaper editors, and every U.S. president with one request: that the last Thursday in November be set aside to ‘offer to God our tribute of joy and gratitude for the blessings of the year.’” (from Sarah Josepha Hale: The Godmother of Thanksgiving | The Old Farmer’s Almanac).

You may note that neither Lincoln nor Hale said a word about Pilgrims or Indians. But the story of the Pilgrims was popularized in the mid-1800s. Joshua J. Mark, in an article titled “Thanksgiving Day: A Brief History” for World History Encyclopedia, says, “The United States holiday of Thanksgiving is generally understood to be inspired by the harvest feast celebrated by the citizens of Plymouth Colony (later known as Pilgrims) and the Native Americans of the Wampanoag Confederacy in the fall of 1621.

“Although there is evidence of earlier thanksgiving celebrations in the Americas by the Spanish in the 16th century and at the Jamestown Colony of Virginia in 1610, following what is known as the ‘starving times’ of 1609, these are not recognized as the ‘First Thanksgiving,’ a term coined by the editor Alexander Young in 1841 referring specifically to the account of the 1621 event as given by the Plymouth Colony’s chroniclers William Bradford (1590-1657) and Edward Winslow (1595-1655) in Mourt’s Relation (published 1622), the earliest work on the first year of the establishment of Plymouth Colony.

“Once the Plymouth Colony had successfully established itself, after struggling through their first year, Mourt’s Relation was carried back to England and published by Robert Cushman (1577-1625) who had negotiated the Mayflower voyage. The book seems to have been an initial success before going out of print and was only brought back to public notice in 1841. Bradford’s work Of Plymouth Plantation, which also references the 1621 event, was published in 1856, and the popular poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) came out in 1858, all further popularizing the story of the pilgrims.” (from Thanksgiving Day: A Brief History – World History Encyclopedia).

To jump more than a hundred years, according to Wikipedia, “In the fall of 1970, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts held a commemorative Thanksgiving celebration on the 350th anniversary of the first landing of the Mayflower. The event’s organizers, including Governor Francis Sargent, invited Frank “Wamsutta” James to speak at the event. James was the leader of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head and president of the Federated Eastern Indian League.

“The event’s organizers requested to review James’ speech in advance of the event. Once it had been reviewed, James was informed that he would not be permitted to give the speech as written. An alternate speech, written by the event’s public relations team, was provided to him. A representative from the Department of Commerce and Development explained to James that ‘…the theme of the anniversary celebration is brotherhood and anything inflammatory would have been out of place.’

“Wamsutta Frank James, Tall Oak Weeden, Gary Parker, Shirley Mills, Rayleen Bey, and several other people organized speakers, recruited attendees on a national scale, and arranged accommodations for out-of-town guests (to an alternate event).

“The first National Day of Mourning event was held on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1970, on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. James delivered an amended speech beside a statue of Ousamequin (who you might know as Massasoit), including these words (with some adaptations for inclusivity):

“’We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white (people) to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where (humanity) and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and (kinship) prevail.

“’You the white (people) are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.’”

According to the article titled National Day of Mourning (United States protest) on Wikipedia, “The event was attended by close to 500 Native Americans from throughout the United States and has been held annually on the fourth Thursday in November every year since.”

Nineteenth-century white America told a romanticized story of a “first” Thanksgiving of Native Americans and settlers peacefully celebrating together the bounty of the land that was enough for all. It is a story we keep telling.

I was in an elementary school this week. There were paper turkeys and paper pilgrims going down the hallways. We forget the massacres of Native Americans perpetrated by Pilgrims. We forget that Native Americans had their farmland taken by settlers and their forests and streams decimated of game and fish by them as well. When Frank “Wamsutta” James sought to say this, he was asked to hold his tongue. He did not, and now every year Native Americans gather, not just to mourn, but also to remind all of us.

On the United American Indians of New England website, it currently says this in their invitation to the National Day of Mourning: “Participants in National Day of Mourning honor Indigenous ancestors and Native resilience. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection, as well as a protest against the racism and oppression that Indigenous people continue to experience worldwide. Join us as we continue to create a true awareness of Native peoples and history. Help shatter the untrue image of the Pilgrims, and the unjust system based on white supremacy, settler colonialism, sexism, homophobia and the profit-driven destruction of the Earth that they and other European settlers introduced to these shores.”

I was reminded of another speech made on another American holiday. Frederick Douglass, speaking at a Fourth of July celebration, said in part, “I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common…. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?” 

So how do we celebrate our American holidays and work for all to truly be included in them? As Frank “Wamsutta” James said, “What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America.…”

To do that first we must tell stories of these holidays that include the perspectives of all of us. That is beginning to happen. Every year I hear descendants of Frederick Douglass read his speech. Every year I hear of Native Americans gathering at Plymouth to fast in mourning for what has been lost. But telling more complete stories of our nation’s beginnings is not enough. We must also move on to the work of today that might make a more humane America.

That can be frustratingly difficult. We take a few steps forward and then several steps back. Nineteenth-century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.” Can we be that optimistic?

I remember the poem by Langston Hughes (Forewarned, I have not adapted any of his wording, so this is not inclusive, and there are words we would not use today.)

“Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

“(America never was America to me.)

“Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

“(It never was America to me.)

“O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

“(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

“Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

“I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

“I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

“I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

“Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

“The free?

“Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

“O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

“Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

“O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

“Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!”

People before us did not lose hope. Will we betray their hope by losing ours? This Thursday, give thanks even as we acknowledge all that is wrong with our nation and world, and then Friday don’t go out shopping to buy things nobody needs. Instead, reflect on your commitment to make this nation and this earth more humane. And don’t refuse to try because you think you don’t have enough power or enough money or enough energy.

Shirley Chisholm, one of the first women to run for the office of American President, said, “The only thing that I have going for me is my soul and my commitment to the American people.” That is enough. Let us take up the mantle. As the last verse of our closing hymn says, “We gather together to join in the journey, confirming, committing our passage to be a true affirmation, in joy and tribulation, when bound to human care and hope—then we are free.”

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