In January 1990, I sat in the basement of a university dormitory in East Berlin, surrounded by students who had just toppled East Germany’s repressive communist government.
The Berlin Wall had fallen two months earlier. Freedom was on the march throughout Eastern Europe — and would soon spread to the Soviet republics. We were listening and singing along to Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution,” which had become the students’ anthem.
Like Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” — another song co-opted for political purposes — the words of Chapman’s song had little to do with the upheaval at the time. But she became one of the symbols of the youthful revolutions of 1989.
Watching the college campus protests this spring, I’ve often thought back to 1989. The differences are astounding. The students then had clear, peaceful and noble aims: to restore freedom to those living under communist regimes.
And they understood that they risked serious consequences. Just a few months earlier, in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, China’s communist regime had slaughtered as many as 3,000 peaceful protesters seeking the same freedoms.
The right “peaceably to assemble” and to “petition the government” are foundational American principles embodied in the Constitution’s First Amendment. This amendment allows various forms of debate and discussion, including peaceful protest, to resolve disputes. But sometimes, protest alone is not enough.
In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson was not drafting a petition; he was drafting the Declaration of Independence — and, with it, a revolution.
Following Jefferson, had the East European revolutionaries of 1989 been American colonists 250 years earlier, they may have declared that they were making an “appeal to heaven.”
The phrase has recently appeared in the news, with stories about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flying an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his beach home. This followed an earlier story about the justice’s wife briefly flying the “Stars and Stripes” upside-down outside their Virginia residence.
What’s all the fuss? The flag flown at the Alito beach house depicts a tall, white pine tree beneath the words “APPEAL TO HEAVEN.” During the American Revolution, it was the official flag of the Massachusetts navy.
The words “appeal to heaven” refer to a passage from John Locke’s “Second Treatise on Government,” a key text for the American revolutionaries. It addressed a tricky problem: What do you do when protesting alone fails to produce justice? For Locke, the answer was to “appeal to heaven.”
Locke didn’t mean to pray but rather to fight, assuming that Heaven would favor— and grant victory to — the just.
When you move from protesting to revolution, you are “appealing to heaven,” believing that might will make right.
This points to another difference in today’s protesters. In an “appeal to heaven,” revolutionaries realize they might lose. Indeed, they might lose their lives.
Those who signed the Declaration of Independence realized this, but “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” concluded their Declaration by mutually pledging “to each other … (their) Lives, Fortunes, and sacred Honor.” In other words, they understood the huge risks they were taking and were ready to suffer the consequences.
Contrast this to the campus protesters, many of whom sought anonymity by hiding their faces, some demanded that food be delivered to them, and almost all seemed to think their actions should be without consequence.
As the United States struggles to find common ground and a common purpose, it is ironic that the symbols used 250 years ago to unite the American colonists in their struggle have become a source of disunity. Polls tell us most Americans would prefer it otherwise.
I was reminded of Tracy Chapman again during this year’s Grammy Awards.
Another great Tracy Chapman song is “Fast Car.” Country singer Luke Combs has been gaining attention for his version of the song. But along with the success came criticism because he allegedly had “appropriated” the work of a gay Black woman.
Rather than jumping on the “appropriation” bandwagon, Chapman chose instead to come out of retirement and sing “Fast Car” as a duet with Combs, a sign of unity. The audience at the Grammys cheered. And heaven smiled.
