Fight the Power

Welcome to this profoundly American gathering—an event that declares once again: we say no to kings. For this is who we are as Americans. Our founders envisioned a nation ruled not by the whims of monarchs but by a constitution, by laws, and by a shared belief in our capacity to think, create, and pursue justice together as a free people. Some claim that standing up today makes us un-American. I would say the opposite: it makes us the most authentic expression of what it means to be American.

When I look again at that original document—the Declaration of Independence—I am reminded of the moral courage it enshrined. The document accuses King George III of presiding over "a long train of abuses and usurpations," a phrase that still echoes through our history. “Abuse,” as the founders named it, means to wield authority in ways that harm, humiliate, or crush. Abuse is when questions are silenced instead of answered, when a Senator or citizen is punished for demanding accountability, when trans children are made into targets simply for existing

And then there is the other word—“usurpation.” It is less often heard today. Usurpation is the wrongful seizure of power, the act of taking from those who have the rightful authority. The Declaration’s authors used that word because they understood that tyranny begins when leaders forget that power flows upward from the governed, not downward from the throne.

That truth brings us here. We are faced with leadership that imagines itself higher than the Constitution, as though elected office were a crown and not a responsibility. A leader was chosen to serve, not to be served—to listen to the governed, not to rule over them. And yet we have seen power twisted, laws ignored, and truth replaced by domination. This is not new in our history, but each generation must answer it.

So today, let us recall another time when Americans were called to awaken. In 1989, filmmaker Spike Lee released the movie, Do the Right Thing. He reached out to Public Enemy, who gave the film its anthem: Fight the Power

Fight the Power means fighting against those forces that seek to strip us of dignity or democracy. It means resisting policies that sow fear in our neighborhoods—whether through immigration raids, racial profiling, or militarized responses to peaceful communities. To “fight the power” is to hold fast to the promise that the people’s moral authority cannot be stolen. It is to stand when others kneel to fear.

Let us name those powers that threaten to take from us: the power that makes health care unreachable for ordinary families; the power that dissolves public trust in elections by weaponizing deceit; the power that treats immigrants as suspects, journalists as enemies, and compassion as weakness. Those are the usurpations of our generation. And we confront them not with hatred, but with a fierce insistence on justice.

Say it together now: I shall, we shall—fight the power.

I shall, we shall—stand in our power.

I shall, we shall—fight the power.

For if we fail to stand now, others will define who we are and what we believe. They will tell our story as though freedom were only for the few, and faith only for the favored.

That cannot be. No one holds the power to redefine what it means to be faithful, to narrow the vast expanse of our spiritual and moral life. We reject the idea that faith belongs only to one nation, one color, or one creed. We remember that our heritage as Americans and believers—whether we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or of no faith—is one of shared liberation. The Jesus many of us follow taught inclusion, mercy, and courage, not exclusion or fear.

So we will fight the power that aims to divide us—religion from religion, citizen from citizen, heart from heart. We will fight the power that whispers that our differences are dangerous..

Because here, on this day, we affirm what the Declaration itself proclaimed: that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. That means from us. That means now. The founding generation fought tyranny with ink and courage; we fight it with solidarity and truth. So stand tall, America. Raise your voice. Defend your Constitution. Defend each other.

We have the power. And we will fight the power—every time it forgets who truly holds it.