The great promise of our national motto, E pluribus unum, has always been just beyond our reach. Forging a unified American identity out of the many peoples who claim it as their own is what Abraham Lincoln referred to as our "great unfinished work." In an era when that identity seems more elusive than ever, with democracy itself under siege, this anthology is a reflection on the core values that hold us together. In 26 essays by American campaigners, builders, entrepreneurs, journalists, theologians, and historians, this collection confronts the universal and radically democratic values at the heart of the American project. At this time, when the country needs a new movement strong enough to defeat authoritarianism and write democracy's next chapter, the essays urge us to remember what inspired the people who came before us, who managed time and again to defy tyranny and move the project forward.
The authors were asked to look at their fields through a lens of American Universalism-the movement from Lincoln's time that emphasized universal freedom, universal rights, and universal opportunity. The resulting essays are a complex, nuanced look at America today as well as a view toward America tomorrow, as we continue to take on what Lincoln called "the great task remaining before us." We present this anthology in the humble hope that it will help us remember the simple, radical American idea that we can also be a single powerful force for good-a people dedicated to the proposition that we are all created equal and free.
Peter Teague co-founded Catalyst for American Futures after nearly 30 years in philanthropy providing strategic advice to foundations, individual donors, and nonprofit organizations. An attorney, Teague has served as a senior strategist and director for national grant-making foundations, senior policy advisor in the U.S. House and Senate, Peace Corps volunteer, and executive director of the eco-modernist Breakthrough Institute and Horizons, the Bay Area's LGBTQ community foundation. Teague has been instrumental in creating and nurturing a number of groundbreaking initiatives, including climate strategies that harmonize economic and environmental resilience with a global clean energy transition. He serves as senior advisor on climate change to funders including the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He has also worked with the Hewlett Foundation, Democracy Funders Network, and the Omidyar Network on issues facing American democracy. Teague has spent significant time in Southeast Asia, India, and East Africa focusing on energy access and women as agents of change. More information: https: //ptphilanthropic.com and https: //americanfutures.com
Seth Flaxman co-founded Catalyst for American Futures after leading Democracy Works as its founding CEO for 12 years, scaling a critical resource that continues to provide tens of millions of Americans with trusted election information online. His leadership has been recognized in Forbes magazine's "30 Under 30" list, and as a Draper Richards Kaplan entrepreneur, Ashoka Fellow, Aspen Ideas Fellow, and Bluhm Helfand Social Innovation Fellow. Flaxman founded Democracy Works while receiving a MPP at the Harvard Kennedy School and after working at the Council on Foreign Relations. He earned his bachelor's degree at Columbia University, where he was student body president, successfully advocating for the largest expansion of financial aid in the school's history. Flaxman is a seventh-generation New Yorker married to his college sweetheart and is writing a historical fiction novel set in St. Louis, 1861.
Ilyse Hogue is a co-founder of Catalyst for American Futures and a Fellow of Political Reform at New America. Trained as an ecologist, Hogue has put those skills to use in understanding and leveraging systems of power: social movements-both left and right-as well as systems of governance and politics. Her career has spanned issues, diving into opportunities for and barriers to collective and societal progress. As a trained scientist, Hogue has always taken a data-driven and research-grounded orientation to effective strategies to advance social change, honing those skills in her time as a leader at MoveOn.org, where she led the communications and advocacy efforts for the six-million-plus member organization. She spent nearly a decade as the President of NARAL Pro-Choice America (now Reproductive Freedom for All), where she tripled the membership and authored the bestselling book The Lie that Binds about the role of abortion in the long-term plan for the authoritarian takeover of America. More information: https: //americanfutures.com
