The video explores America's historical mission statement, devised by Gouverneur Morris, focusing on the aspiration for the nation to be just, peaceful, good, and free. The speaker provides a captivating narrative by stepping back to 1804, sharing the story of Alexander Hamilton's untimely death and the involvement of Gouverneur Morris, who emphasizes profound ideas for the United States through the Constitution's preamble, a mission statement often memorized in schools.

It highlights that hope is a fundamental choice rather than a fleeting emotion. By providing historical and modern examples, including figures like Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, and Septima Clark, the speaker illustrates that actions stemming from hope can steer the society towards transformative change, despite tribulations or adversities. Septima Clark's story, in particular, demonstrates resilience in seemingly insurmountable adversity, accentuating her contributions to civil rights and literacy.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. mission statement [ˈmɪʃən ˈsteɪtmənt] - (noun) - A formal summary of the aims and values of a company, organization, or individual. - Synonyms: (declaration, manifesto, statement of purpose)

So what if I told you all along America has had a mission statement?

2. eulogize [ˈjuː.ləˌdʒaɪz] - (verb) - To praise highly in speech or writing, especially someone who has just died. - Synonyms: (praise, extol, commend)

Gouverneur Morris goes to his funeral and he's going to eulogize him.

3. verklempt [fəˈklɛmpt] - (adjective) - Choked up with emotion; overwhelmed. - Synonyms: (overcome, emotional, moved)

He's verklempt, right? Like, he needs to talk to these people.

4. despot [ˈdɛspət] - (noun) - A ruler or other person who holds absolute power, typically one who exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way. - Synonyms: (tyrant, dictator, autocrat)

We didn't know if America would fall to despotic men.

5. imposter syndrome [ɪmˈpɑːstər ˈsɪndroʊm] - (noun) - An internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be. - Synonyms: (self-doubt, inadequacy, insecurity)

Do not have a moment of imposter syndrome.

6. systematically [ˌsɪs.təˈmæt.ɪ.kəl.i] - (adverb) - In a thorough, orderly, or methodical manner. - Synonyms: (orderly, methodically, consistently)

People who had been systematically excluded from the educational system.

7. civil rights movement [ˈsɪvɪl raɪts ˈmuːvmənt] - (noun) - The movement in the United States beginning in the 1950s to establish the civil rights of individual African American citizens. - Synonyms: (civil rights struggle, equality movement, anti-discrimination movement)

Her work ultimately has a significant impact on the civil rights movement.

8. endurance [ɪnˈdjʊrəns] - (noun) - The ability to withstand hardship or adversity; especially the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity. - Synonyms: (stamina, resilience, persistence)

We must pursue with endurance the next right thing.

9. lamentations [ˌlæmənˈteɪʃənz] - (noun) - The passionate expression of grief or sorrow. - Synonyms: (wailing, mourning, lament)

You're just going to have to listen to the lamentations of a bewailing friend.

10. tranquility [træŋˈkwɪlɪti] - (noun) - The quality or state of being calm or peaceful. - Synonyms: (calmness, serenity, peace)

To ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense.

How to have hope for American democracy - Sharon McMahon - TEDxBillings

So what if I told you all along America has had a mission statement? And not just a mission statement, but a method we are meant to use to achieve this mission, to execute the mission. It's true. And I can prove it to you. But first I need to tell you a story. The year is 1804, and Alexander Hamilton has just been shot by the sitting vice president of the United States. By the way, did you know that Aaron Burr was the sitting vice president? Imagine any scenario today in which the sitting, sitting vice president is like, I'm gonna meet you at that park in New Jersey, right? It's ridiculous. So Alexander Hamilton, he's on his deathbed and of course he's surrounded by his children and his wife and everybody's sobbing, they can't believe it. And he has this little tiny toddler. It's all. The whole scenario is terrible. And of course it makes complete sense that he would be surrounded by his family, by his loved ones.

But what you may not realize is that there was someone else in the room. Someone else who was so close to the Hamiltons that he drew near to them in the hour of their greatest tragedy. And this man is very tall and he's broad, he's portly. One might say Hamilton was very small. He was, you know, like maybe five, six, very sleight of build. Hamilton arrives in the United States with absolutely nothing. Of course, he was famously an orphan. This, this man had a landed estate, like the kind you name after your family. He came from incredible wealth and his name was Gouverneur Morris. Have you heard of Gouverneur Morris before that was his actual first name. He was not a governor. His mother, like, looked at her newborn and was like, gouverneur, that's a good name for you, right? He had a peg leg as well that he lost in a carry. Lost his leg in a carriage accident. He also had a way with the ladies. The ladies did not seem to mind that he had a peg leg. Did not bother them. And it was Gouverneur Morris who came up with America's mission statement. And it was his idea that America at her best should be four things. America should be just peaceful, good and free.

And now you might be thinking, why have I never heard of a mission statement, right? Like no one has mentioned any mission statement to me. And I'm going to tell you that in fact, you have heard of this mission statement. If you grew up in the United States, your 5th grade teacher may have made you memorize it. And it goes like this. It goes we the people, in order to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense, to promote the general welfare or the common good, and to secure the blessings of liberty to our and our posterity, we do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States, right? Summed up just peaceful, good and free. Those were the ideas that the founders came up with when they thought what would make America great. And after Hamilton dies, he has an illustrious rap career on Broadway, of course, right? He's a great rapper.

After Hamilton dies, Gouverneur Morris goes to his funeral and he's going to eulogize him. And if you imagine this very large man sitting on the stage of the church and he's surrounded by Hamilton's teenage sons and he's looking out at the crowd, it's very hot. It's summertime. Everybody's wearing, like, wool and they have wigs, right? It's very crowded. They're all packed in like sardines. There's no air conditioning. There's no microphones. And he realizes, like, he's. He's verklempt, right? Like, he needs to talk to these people. And he gets up and he's. He says, essentially, I don't really have anything great to say, you guys. I don't really have any. I don't know. And what he ends with is, you're just going to have to listen to the lamentations of a bewailing friend. That's what he says. Like, I'm just really torn up. I don't have anything good to say.

And he goes on to tell the story of how 17 years prior, he and Hamilton had served at the Constitutional Convention together, where they worked all summer in this hot room with a bunch of stinky people. And they argued the entire summer. They. It was a volunteer group project. That's what writing the Constitution was. Doesn't that sound terrible? An actual volunteer group project where you have to argue with people for months at a time, right? Most of us peace out, right? Like, I'm not interested in your group project. In fact, 25% of the people who participated in the Constitutional Convention went home before it was done. 25% bailed on the volunteer group project.

So this is the thing. He gets up and he says, we had many reservations amongst ourselves. We did not know if the institutions we were building if the Constitution we had just written would hold. We didn't know. We didn't know if America would fall to despotic men. But we hoped Better things. And I'm struck by that phrase, we hoped better things. These people who came up with these ideas, right, we tend to deify them. Like, in their infinite wisdom, they came up with all the great ideas. Legislative, executive, judicial, right, proportional representation. We tend to think that these are just like the ideas of the smartest people in the world. And here they are saying, I don't know. I don't know if it's going to work out, you guys, but we hoped for better things. Despite evidence to the contrary, sometimes, we hoped for better things. Note what he does not say. He does not say a feeling of hope came over us. He does not say a beam of light descended and we just knew that everything was going to work out. He does not say, we woke up each morning listening to the hopeful birds chirping in the hopeful sunshine, and we just knew that everything was going to. America is going to be wonderful in the future.

And that is because hope is not a feeling. And I think too many of us are waiting to experience a feeling. We think it's going to be like falling in love. I'm going to wait to feel the feelings. Hope is a choice. Hope is a choice. And when you make the choice every day, that is the place that you can take action from. Morris, by the way, this might make you feel better. Okay? So in addition to the peg leg Morris, this man who wrote we the people later accidentally kills himself, okay? He later accidentally kills himself when he gets what we would presume is a kidney stone. And if you've ever had one, you know those are tremendously painful, right? He gets what is presumably a kidney stone, and he thinks, I gotta get rid of this thing. And the way that he thought he would get rid of it, I would imagine there's at least one physician in this room. And you're gonna be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. He goes to his wife's corset and removes a piece of whale bone. And he thought, I'm just going to clear that out, okay? It didn't work. He punctured something. I don't know what it was, but he punctured something. And then he dies of an infection not long after, okay? This is the man who wrote we the people, okay? This is the man.

Don't let anybody tell you nothing, okay? Do not have a moment of imposter syndrome. Do not be like, oh, I don't know if it's me. I don't know if I'm the right person. Don't let nobody tell you nothing, okay? The man who wrote we the people. That's like on the parchment. We're all like, yes, we the people. No, no. He killed himself with a whalebone on accident. Okay? But I love what he has to say. Hope is not a feeling that we were waiting to feel. Because if you're waiting for feeling, you might keep on going, right? It's not a sign. If you're looking for a sign, you might keep on looking. It is not a mathematical equation in which we're going to be like, a plus B equals hope, right? I'm not going to arrive at this logical end where now I'm allowed to feel the feelings of hope. And that is because hope is not a feeling.

Hope is a choice, right? You can't do it on a calculator. The people from our past just made the decision to hope. And if you want to know what great Americans have in common, it is that they have worked in their own way, in their own sphere of influence, in their homes and their schools and their houses of worship. They have worked in the government. They have worked at their businesses to make America four things. Just peaceful, good, and free, right? And the only way that you can do that is if you have hope that your actions will make a difference. When you wake up in the morning and you plant your feet on the ground, you can say to yourself, I will have hope despite evidence to the contrary, because that is the human experience, right? We cannot wait for a feeling of hope to descend upon us.

And I want to tell you very briefly about a woman that I admire so much. Her name was Septima Clark, and I have completely forgotten to change any of my slides. I was totally engrossed with telling you about the whale bone, of which I did not put a picture into the presentation. I want to tell you about this woman. Her name is Septima Clark. She was born in 1898, and she becomes a teacher at a time when black teachers were not allowed to work in Charleston Public Schools, no matter which race of students they were teaching. No black teachers.

So she gets a job on an island off the coast of South Carolina. And this job is in a very rundown school. It doesn't even have glass in the windows. It just has shutters. And a sign on the top of the school says, promise Land School. And I was like, that is right. That is right. They did not say, maybe someday we'll feel feelings of hope. School. This school is Promised Land School. And when she walked into that classroom, she's paid, like, no money, right? She has no meaningful supplies and her choices became, in that school room, either get eaten alive by the bugs, because y'all don't have mosquitoes that much up here, right? But they do in South Carolina. And other bugs, the choices are either get eaten alive by bugs or close the shutters. So most often, they had school in the dark, in the actual dark. And she had every right to look around and be like, I don't see the difference of anything that I'm doing. I don't see any difference. But yet she chose to keep going. She chose to have hope that her efforts would matter someday, despite current evidence to the contrary.

And she goes on to have a very, very impactful but also very, very challenging life. She has a baby, and the baby dies. And then she has another baby. And then she discovers that her husband has an entire secret second life, like, with a separate wife and kids. And then shortly after she discovers this, her husband dies, leaving her essentially penniless, raising this child. And throughout her career, she's involved in lawsuits. She stands up for herself at work and gets fired. She is falsely accused and arrested. And multiple times people tried to kill her. Most of us cannot walk around being like, yeah, they tried to kill me three times. Right? And yet Septima continued to choose to have hope, right? It was Septima who began something called Citizenship School.

And Citizenship School ultimately would become a large network of community education classes in which people who had been systematically excluded from the educational system could come and learn how to read. They could come and learn how to register to vote. They could come and learn how to sign a paycheck in cursive. They could read it, learn to read a map. Septima Clark trained Rosa Parks before Rosa Parks was Rosa Parks, right? So her work ultimately has a significant impact on the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement would not have been the same without her. And I would imagine that most of you have never seen her face, right? Most of you do not know her name. And that's not because she did not make an impact.

So suffice it to say, we might look back on her today and be like, way to go. That's incredible. Good for you for keeping on going. But let's not forget that at the time, white Southerners were actively trying to firebomb her house. She did not look around, be like, wow, everyone is appreciating me for my efforts. I feel so great about all of this. That's not what she was experiencing in that moment. Now, Septima had a very soft speaking voice. People who knew her said she barely spoke Above a whisper. But this is a quote from her that I think deserves to roar. She said, you know, the measure of a person is how much they develop in their life. You never know when a person is going to leap forward or change around completely. I've seen growth like most people don't think possible. And here is the part that I hope if you learn one thing at this entire event and you tuck it into your pocket.

Septima says, I can even work with my enemies because I know from experience that they might have a change of heart at any moment. I can even work with my enemies, right, because they might have a change of heart at any moment. And that was something that she knew from experience. And I just love this idea that this is what hope for Democracy looks like, right? This is what hope for America, hope for the world looks like. It is not a feeling. It is a choice. It is a choice to believe that even your enemies who are actively trying to firebomb your house can have a change of heart at any moment. And what does Septima encourage us to do? Leave a mean tweet disinvited from Thanksgiving? Hold them accountable for associating with that person? No, she says, I can work with my enemies because they might have a change of heart at any moment.

How would your enemies ever have a change of heart if you don't work with them? Exactly. How would that happen? Does one army on a battlefield look at the other army on a battlefield and be like, you know what? That. That side might be better? No, they have to interact with each other. Right? So at any moment, if you are willing to put in the work, you might find that your enemies can have a change of heart. How will they ever have a change of heart if we are all siloed in our own little belief systems? If we're like, that's right. I love that news channel. I only watch them. If we only hear the things we want to hear, how will anyone ever have a change of heart? And that is what hope for Democracy looks like.

The choice to continue to believe that the world is not yet as just peaceful, good or free as it ought to be. And because of that, I am going to do what I can where I am, with the resources available to me, including working with my enemies, if that's what it's going to take. Abraham Lincoln, who all historians, 100% are like, yeah, he's the best president, right? He's the best one. If we did a poll in here, maybe some of you would choose JFK because he's Cute, right? Everybody else would say, Lincoln. Guess what? Most Americans hated Lincoln. He was. People tried to murder him multiple times before they were successful. Imagine going to work and having half of your coworkers be like, pam's ideas are so bad that I would rather get my arm shot off than do Pam's ideas. That's what was happening to Abraham Lincoln. I would literally rather risk my life than go along with your ideas. So he was not popular at the time. Hundreds of thousands of men die, but bunch of them never come home. But Lincoln continued to make the choice to have hope.

And it was his hope that led us through some of America's darkest times. Right? And it is our choice to continue to have hope. And like Gouverneur Morris, like Septima Clark, like Abraham Lincoln, we must hope for better things. We must make the choice to have hope that what we do matters. We must have courage that who we are becoming matters. And we must pursue with endurance the next right thing, even when we cannot see the results of our labor right now. And in the words of Abraham Lincoln, let us strive on to finish the work we are in. With malice toward none and charity for all, let us bind up this nation's wounds. For America still remains one of the last best hopes of the world.

American History, Democracy, Civil Rights, Education, Politics, Leadership, Tedx Talks