Historians for 2026

I am the founder and chair of “Historians for 2026,” a group of early American academics, public historians, archivists, and teachers devoted to shaping an accurate, inclusive, and just public memory of the American Founding for the upcoming 250th anniversary.

In this role, I have spearheaded a collaboration with TIME’s “Made by History” section for a special “Road to 250” series. Excerpts from this project are below.

If you are interested in joining “Historians for 2026,” please email me at shira.lurie@smu.ca.

The True Meaning of “Give Me Liberty”

By: John Ragosta

Almost 250 years ago, four weeks before the battles of Lexington and Concord, Patrick Henry rose in St. John’s Church in Richmond, Va., to urge Americans to arm for a war that he saw as inevitable. He famously concluded his call to arms: “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

Patriots embraced Henry’s dramatic refrain, and rallying militia members sewed it into their hunting shirts. Since then, his words have echoed through the centuries, here and abroad. In 1845, Frederick Douglass referenced Henry when he wrote of the enslaved battling for freedom. Over a century later, when thousands gathered for liberty in Tiananmen Square and when Hong Kong protesters fought for democratic rights, they also invoked Henry’s words.

Yet, Henry’s phrase has been embraced by some as a radical call for opposition to almost any government action. Timothy McVeigh quoted Henry after his 1995 anti-government Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 and injured 700. In 2020, signs attacking health regulations demanded, rather confusedly, “Give me liberty or give me COVID-19!” Protesters seeking to undermine a democratic election on Jan. 6, 2021, quoted Henry. His famous phrase has appeared on everything from AR-15 dust covers to a Tea Party manifesto.

Rather than a call for democratic freedom, Henry’s mantra has become a radical screed. But wrapping anti-government campaigns in Henry’s words demonstrates a fundamental historical misunderstanding, one that speaks to an increasingly dangerous American fixation on personal freedom at the expense of fellow citizens and our shared government…

The Founders Didn’t Want a Gerontocracy

By: Rebecca Brannon

America’s political gerontocracy is hard to avoid noticing. Our presidency continues to be dominated by septuagenarians and octogenarians, and Mitch McConnell will finally retire from running the Senate at age 82. The Dianne Feinstein revelations of advanced dementia mere months before her death at 90 years of age vividly demonstrated the potential ramifications that come with a consolidated elderly leadership. WWFD: What would the Founders Do?

The Founders did care about the implications of an increasingly gerontocratic government and sought to avoid it. In their own lifetimes, they moved from a monarchical political system that prized the wisdom of age—and therefore often allowed political figures who were far past their prime—to a democratic system where voters intentionally placed political offices of trust in vigorous middle-aged men. To them, political leadership demanded cognitive and emotional quickness and flexibility…