‘America needs to grow up’: NPR

As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, historian and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. says he is angry. He opens his new book, America, USA: How race casts a shadow over the nation’s anniversaries, Frankly, with this declaration: “I don’t love America, and never will, especially now.”

Glaude points to redistricting efforts by the Supreme Court that threaten to gut the Voting Rights Act and limit black representation in Congress.

Glaude says, “What I was trying to do with this book was write some security under my feet. So that I could really control this anger, control my sadness, my sadness.”

America, USA Looks at the country through the prism of its past anniversaries and centenary years. Today, as in the past, Glaude says, “the divided soul of the nation is on full display.” As the 250th anniversary approaches, he says it is time for the country to acknowledge how it has failed to live up to its founding principles:

He says, “America has to grow up. It can no longer hide in its adolescence.” “America imagines itself as a symbol of freedom and a white republic at the same time. And putting those two things together … deposits a kind of madness in the heart of the country.”

Highlights of the interview

On starting his book with this sentence: “I don’t love America.”

I wrote some version of the introduction and it didn’t work. I thought I was hiding something. …and so I returned to that first paragraph, and suddenly this sentence appeared on the page. And I got up and I started walking around my study and I was afraid of what it would mean if I left it there. And then my mind just said, “But this is what you have to say. You have to start from here and then you can explain.” So I left it.

On the importance of the country’s anniversaries

In each of these moments, the country has to tell a story about itself. A story needs to be told about its establishment. And so here we are at the 250th and looking at the types of story outlines – just don’t look at the UFC arena or the Great American Fair or the Garden of Heroes statues. But they’re going to tell a story about the sanctity of the Founders, a story about the sanctity of this grand experiment.

What does patriotism mean to them?

Sometimes patriotism, to my ears, sounds like a rebellious cry. The people who embrace the flag, who wrap themselves in the piety of the country, are often, at most, the people who think I should be in my place, the people who are behind the attack on voting rights, the people who want to deny the uniqueness of the experiences that shape the way I see this place. So usually when I hear a strong, passionate embrace of love for country, you know, my head spins. Who sang it, and what is its meaning and purpose?

He was treated to a storybook version of America’s founding during a 2024 tour of Philadelphia’s Congress Hall

(The guide) was taking us around the House and then the Senate, and he was telling us these stories and talking about the struggle at the end. (He says) that they were not divided according to party, but you know, region and whatnot. And (he) said the biggest conflict is that they come from the South and the North. And I said, okay, here we go. We’re going to start talking about slavery. And then he says that he did not know how to shake hands. That was an example of the conflict between Congressmen that one would yield (and the other would budge). And I was like, that’s it? And then I just saw ghosts. I saw ghosts around Congress Hall. But to me it was a startling example of the storybook version of the country.

Anna Baumann and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.