By Ben Jealous
EDITORIAL
In my house, two legacies face each other.
On one wall hangs a reproduction of The Spirit of ’76, painted by my cousin Archibald M. Willard for the nation’s hundredth birthday. The central drummer in that painting — the older man leading the trio — was modeled after Archibald’s father, my cousin too.
The Spirit of ’76 is America’s most famous Revolutionary painting — the definitive image of independence, instantly recognizable wherever it appears. First displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, it captured the mood of a nation celebrating its hundredth year and looking back on its birth in revolution.
For my family, it is not just symbolic. My father descends from six officers in the Massachusetts Line of the Continental Army — and from a seventh, a 13-year-old fifer who fought at Lexington and Concord. He was the youngest combatant on that battlefield, carrying both a fife and a musket into the first fight of the Revolution. He lived into his 90s, long enough to be photographed — the only person from that battlefield whose face we can still see.
That painting is the definitive picture of 1776: a battered but unbroken march for freedom and equality. My family is literally in the frame — and in the fight.
Across the room sits another inheritance: the desk of my mother’s great-great-grandfather, Peter G. Morgan, born enslaved in Nottoway County, Virginia, in 1817.
Beside it rests the courting set he bought so his three daughters, once freed, could welcome suitors in dignity.
My family isn’t just in the picture of 1776. We live the unfinished fight of 1876.
A wager for freedom and equality
In 1864, while Petersburg was under Confederate siege, Morgan walked into a Confederate court and freed his wife and daughters.
Virginia law was brutal: any Black person gaining freedom — and their family — had 12 months to leave the state. Fail to leave, and you could be seized and enslaved again.
So Morgan wagered exile — or even re-enslavement — if Confederate authorities got to them before the Union did. Still, he took the risk. He bet everything on freedom and equality.
He was right on the first count. And for a time, right on the second.
Reconstruction’s promise
After the war, Morgan served in Virginia’s House of Delegates from 1869 to 1871. He sat on Petersburg’s city council and school board.
He helped build schools, relief associations, and even a bank. He believed that Reconstruction — America’s “second founding” — could finally make freedom and equality real.
But he also lived to see those hopes collapse.
The collapse came just after the hopeful celebration of 1876, with the Compromise of 1877 — a backroom deal to resolve the contested race between Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican Rutherford Hayes. Republicans kept the White House by giving in to Democratic demands to pull federal troops from the South.
With the old Union soldiers gone, white supremacists unleashed murderous violence to retake power. Reconstruction ended not with a bang but a betrayal — and lynch mobs burning human flesh.
Twin revolutions, both unfinished
That is America in a nutshell: twin spirits, twin moments, both unfinished.
1776 was for freedom.
1876 was for equality.
Yet neither dream dies.
The fire passes from Harriet Tubman to Ella Baker. From Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King Jr. From Chicago’s Jacqueline Jackson to Chicago’s Michelle Obama. And it burns on in young organizers today.
The warning is clear: freedom and equality are fragile, and gains can be rolled back. Today, both are under attack again — with democracy itself on the line, racial equality undermined, and immigrants targeted with open hostility.
The charge is clearer still: if my great-great-great-grandfather could bet on freedom and equality in 1864 while Petersburg burned — and my father’s young ancestor could join his father and brothers in arms at Lexington — surely we can fight for freedom and equality in our own time.
Ben Jealous is a former national president of the NAACP and a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
These aren’t just a loss for businesses big and small; they are a loss for entire communities. For many, especially in under-resourced areas, these pharmacies are where people fill prescriptions, get vaccinated, manage chronic conditions, and ask health questions they can’t afford to take to a doctor. They’re a pillar of public health.
So why is this happening? One major reason is a coordinated attack by the pharmaceutical industry on the very companies, the socalled middlemen that help keep drug costs down. These are the organizations that negotiate discounts, enable mail delivery, and manage the logistics that make medicine more affordable and accessible. Despite their role in lowering prices, they’re being blamed in ads, in the press, and in legislation. But without them, drug prices will rise and the pharmacies serving vulnerable neighborhoods will keep disappearing.
When lawmakers pass bills that strip away these providers’ ability to negotiate or operate pharmacies, the effects are swift and severe. Just look at Arkansas, where a new law is shutting down pharmacies and cutting off health care access in communities already struggling to meet basic needs. Other states are considering similar legislation, and minority communities will be hit first and worst.
This expanding patchwork of pharmacy deserts is not just inconvenient. It is a looming public health emergency that puts our communities at risk. Already, one-third of neighborhoods in major U.S. cities lack a local pharmacy, and those hardest hit are Black and Hispanic communities. If this trend continues, millions more will lose access to medications they need to stay healthy, manage diabetes or heart disease, or treat depression and anxiety. The
list goes on.
We can’t afford to let that happen. Yes, our medicines must be cheaper. I am a lifelong Democrat. And when Republicans and President Trump are wrong, I hold them accountable. As such, the President deserves some acknowledgement with his recent executive order that aims to stop big drug companies from charging Americans the highest prices in the world. As did President Biden, who fought to allow Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices. But the real problem is that big drug companies are responsible for high drug prices, not the companies working to deliver
medications affordably and efficiently. Tearing down the system that negotiates lower drug costs is like smashing a fire alarm because it’s too loud. It doesn’t stop the fire. It creates chaos and puts more people in danger.
Let’s stop attacking the parts of the system that are helping people. Parts that our everyday communities rely on. Let’s protect the pharmacies, services, and tools that keep our most vulnerable neighbors connected to care. Because once a pharmacy leaves a neighborhood, it rarely comes back, and the consequences can last a lifetime.