Michelle Obama’s ‘Imperfect Democracy’ Remark Revives Questions America Has Never Fully Answered

By Stacy M. Brown
 

Standing before thousands gathered for the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, Michelle Obama celebrated what the sprawling complex represents, noting that it’s more than a monument to a former president.

The former first lady made sure to acknowledge the country’s unfinished work.

“The Obama Presidential Center is a living testament to the power of choice, y’all,” Obama said during the ceremony. “The historic example that millions of you gave the world about what this imperfect democracy has strived for and achieved. And an urgent call to go out there and do it again.”

Her description of the United States as an “imperfect democracy” touched on a question that has followed the nation since its founding and one that is receiving renewed attention as America approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

For some historians, educators and civil rights advocates, the anniversary presents an opportunity not only to celebrate the country’s achievements but also to examine the contradictions that have shaped its history.

For Obama and many of the attendees, those contradictions are difficult to ignore.

Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that “all men are created equal” while enslaving hundreds of people at Monticello. The Constitution established democratic principles while permitting slavery. After the Civil War, formerly enslaved Americans were promised 40 acres and a mule as part of an effort to build economic independence, only to see those commitments abandoned.

More than a century later, abolitionist Frederick Douglass’s words continue to resonate. In speeches and writings, Douglass repeatedly challenged Americans to measure the nation’s actions against its ideals, arguing that the country’s founding principles could not be separated from the treatment of Black Americans.

One commentator wondered whether some resistance to racial progress is rooted in a fear that those who have historically held power could one day experience the same exclusion and discrimination once imposed on others. Another explored whether equality itself is sometimes viewed as a threat because it challenges longstanding assumptions about who belongs at the top of society and who does not.

That question has appeared repeatedly throughout American history.

From Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement and into the present day, opponents of racial change have often expressed concerns that expanding rights for one group would come at the expense of another. Civil rights leaders, including Douglass, argued instead that democracy works only when rights are expanded rather than restricted.

The Obama Presidential Center unites those competing visions.

Its very existence reflects a level of progress that earlier generations could scarcely have imagined.  As Michelle Obama so poetically described, the center recognizes achievement without ignoring failure. It celebrates progress without declaring victory. And it suggests that democracy is not a destination reached once and for all, but an ongoing struggle over who is included, who is heard and whether the nation’s actions will ultimately match its ideals.

“Failing to see the humanity in all people puts us all on a slippery slope, and once that slide starts, there’s no telling where it stops,” Michelle Obama remarked. “A dangerous precedent that flies in the very face of our faith and of the founding promise of this democracy: that all of us. All of us are created equal. That each of us is a child of God with inherent value. And that no one, and I mean no one, has the right to sit in judgment of who is American enough.”

Some observers noted that the Obama center’s 19-acre footprint falls well short of the 40 acres once promised to formerly enslaved people after emancipation, a comparison showing how discussions about race, opportunity and citizenship remain intertwined with the nation’s history.

In a discussion about democracy, one individual compared the nation to a boxer waking up after being knocked to the canvas. After smelling salt brings the fighter back to consciousness, he looks around and asks a simple question.

“What happened?”

The metaphor speaks to questions that have followed the country for generations.

What happened to the promises made to Indigenous people who inhabited the continent before European settlement? What happened to the ideals of equality articulated by Jefferson while slavery remained legal? What happened to Reconstruction-era commitments intended to help formerly enslaved Americans build economic security?

Those questions remain at the center of modern discussions about democracy.

At the same time, the Obama Presidential Center stands as evidence of changes many once considered impossible. The election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first Black president represented a milestone unimaginable to generations of Americans who lived under slavery, segregation and legalized discrimination.

As the nation prepares to mark its 250th birthday, whether Americans view these tensions as flaws as defining characteristics of the nation may ultimately shape how the next chapter of its history is written.

“Hope is all we have, because hope is the essential spark that lights the fire of change,” Michelle Obama stated. “But hope is a choice. Whether or not we use our voices to speak up is a choice. Voting is a choice. Being a decent human being is a choice. Believing that we still hold the power to build a country that reflects us all is a choice.”