A Most Exciting Time
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer

Can it really be almost 50 years since our bicentennial? It was such an exciting time for me. I was in my mid-teens and filled with so much patriotism. With my mom and grandparents as immigrants who came to this country to escape fascist and totalitarian regimes, I was taught from an early age about the blessings of being born in the United States. From my perspective, we came together to celebrate 200 years as a nation. As I got older, I began to appreciate what went into the forming of our nation. I learned of great men and women who had a yearning for freedom and risked their lives so this great nation could be born.

We now are entering into a most exciting time, the 250^th anniversary of our most amazing nation. An experiment unlike any in the history of mankind. Between now and July 2026 we will celebrate the anniversary of pivotal events leading up to the Declaration of Independence. This upcoming Saturday, December16^th, will be the 250^th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. An act of political and mercantile protest against the British Parliament’s tax on tea.

You might say, what’s the big deal about a tax on tea? The big deal was Taxation Without Representation. The colonists didn’t have representation in parliament and believed that having taxes imposed by the parliament was unfair and, well, totalitarian. The tax on tea was just the last straw in a long line of taxes. The ports of New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston had already rebelled against this new tax in one form or another, and now it was Boston’s turn.

On the night of December 16^th, 1773, men boarded the ships carrying the tea and tossed the tea into Boston Harbor. Perhaps this act, more than anything else, ignited the American Revolution. As you can imagine, the British Parliament didn’t take this act of rebellion well and passed several acts known as the Coercive Acts or Intolerable Acts to punish Massachusetts, among which was The Boston Port Bill which banned ships from being unloaded in Boston.

Names of those involved that you may recognize are Samuel Adams, John Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock. My hope is that as these anniversaries come and go, we might take just a moment and appreciate those who risked their own lives and fortunes to establish a “more perfect union,” that we are blessed to enjoy today.