By Sam Carter
2026 Church and Society Summer Intern
July 4th, 2026, marked the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document that formally announced independence from British tyranny and the beginning of the American experiment. The Declaration begins with promises that have never been fully kept: that “all men are created equal” and endowed with the unalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The gap between promise and practice should urge us to reframe our understanding of Independence Day. Instead of nostalgic idealization of America’s past or cynical dismissal of it, we should hold the values of the Declaration as an aspirational hope for a better future for the United States.
The early years of the American experiment showed opportunity and promise, a vast expanse of valuable, resource-rich land. Controlling this land and its resources became the foundation of American prosperity. Capitalizing on this opportunity has historically come at someone else’s expense. This gain depended on acquiring land, exploitation of labor, and the destructive extraction of natural resources.
This pattern consistently repeats itself throughout American history: Native Americans were forcibly and violently removed from their ancestral homelands in the name of manifest destiny; African Americans were denied the liberties promised in the Declaration of Independence as their forced labor fueled the early economic growth of the U.S.; rural communities and their environments have been sacrificed as a result of extractive industry. These moments of American history differ greatly, but they reveal a common pattern: American prosperity too frequently relies on the exploitation and destruction of people and their environments.
This pattern has not disappeared; it has changed shape. The same dynamics that decided whose land was taken, whose labor was exploited, and whose environment was destroyed now decide whose neighborhood sits by a landfill, whose water is contaminated, and whose community bears the health consequences of industries that benefit everyone else. Environmental justice is not a distinctly modern issue; it is the same historical struggle continuing in a modern way, forcing populations to sacrifice their own wellbeing for the country’s prosperity.
But this pattern can be broken when the United States lives up to the ideals stated in the Declaration. Holding these ideals as an aspiration means striving for a country where clean air and clean water are not privileges determined by geography or race, but the unalienable rights the Declaration always claimed them to be. That is what the 250th anniversary should mean: not a celebration of what America has been, but a commitment to what it strives to become.
Samuel “Sam” Carter is a senior at Appalachian State University, where he is majoring in Religious Studies with a minor in Geography. He is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, and attends Myers Park United Methodist Church. His passion for justice has been shaped through mission experiences across the United States, Mexico, and Costa Rica. While those opportunities were transformative, they also inspired him to seek long-term solutions to the systemic issues that created the need for mission work. He hopes this summer will provide an opportunity to see what The United Methodist Church is doing within and outside of the church to strike at the root of the issues. Sam is excited that this internship will help him discern how his interests in justice and advocacy might develop into a meaningful vocation.