This week, I am sending out my weekly journal a day early, since many of you will undoubtedly be in the midst of Thanksgiving celebrations with family and friends tomorrow.
As you gather with loved ones, I encourage you to reflect on the origins of our country’s Thanksgiving holiday. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. While our increasingly secular culture backs away from any mention of God, Lincoln’s intentions for Thanksgiving were to “set apart and observe the last Thursday of November… as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
Lincoln’s national day of thanks and praise came about, in large measure, because of the efforts of a tireless visionary, Sarah Josepha Hale. Ms. Hale persevered for 40 years before realizing the fruits of her labors, lobbying members of Congress and 5 presidents to “create an official day of thanks.” Such single-minded and enduring dedication to a cause is an encouragement to all of us who want to see fundamental education reform in our country.
Last Thursday marked the passing of another visionary, when Nobel laureate and economist Milton Friedman died at the age of 94. Dr. Friedman was a passionate voice for freedom and the powers of the free market for more than half a century. His “outlandish” idea in 1955 of allowing parents to use government money to fund public or private education laid the groundwork for an education revolution. Widely regarded as the father of the modern-day school choice movement, Dr. Friedman’s nascent dream of educational freedom has since become reality for thousands of American families. While Dr. Friedman’s vitae details many impressive accomplishments, the written word fails to convey the enormous scope of his legacy. Dr. Friedman, you will be missed.
Dr. Friedman’s passing reminds us of the brevity of life, yet it also heralds the power of one life, lived well, to alter history. After all, strength doesn’t come from numbers; rather it grows with the intensity of our convictions. As another economist, Englishman John Stuart Mill, said, “One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.”
As we give thanks tomorrow for our many blessings, may we also be inspired to speak boldly about our core convictions, whatever they may be. We just might start a revolution.