News Article

When Celebrating Jamestown, Remember America's Mission
by Frank B. Atkinson
April 23, 2006

This op/ed was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch


Many private enterprises have produced dramatic advances, and a handful have affected the course of human history. But no entrepreneurial venture has proved as consequential as the Virginia Company of London.

Four hundred years ago this month a group of optimistic investors and their canny lawyers crafted the visionary charter that brought the Virginia Company into being. They set in motion events that would lead, in May, 1607, to the first permanent English settlement in the Americas - at "Jamestown."

The journey they began would change the world.

From that fragile first planting at Jamestown grew a robust Virginia colony, the incubator for ideas and institutions that would define and prosper the American Republic - among them, representative government, free enterprise, religious liberty, and the rule of law.

America is a nation of immigrants, and its cultural diversity traces its roots to Jamestown, where Native Americans, English settlers, and enslaved Africans first came together under the most trying of conditions.

From those harsh beginnings commenced a 400-year-long journey toward making the promise of freedom real for everyone. It is a journey that has challenged and inspired the American people. And in our time it is a journey that has brought liberty and democracy to much of the world.

Significant Event

Congress recognized the transcendent importance of Jamestown and this journey when, in 2000, it created the Jamestown 400th Commemoration Commission and charged it with bringing the anniversary and its significance to the attention of the American people.

The mission is primarily an

educational one.
Many Americans, young and old, lack an understanding of their nation's journey. They take for granted freedoms that are strikingly exceptional in the long sweep of human history, and that have been gained and sustained only through centuries of struggle, sacrifice, and service.

The 400th anniversary of the remarkable beginning at Jamestown - America's 400th anniversary - provides a unique opportunity to acquaint Americans with their past and show its connection to their present and future.

To seize this opportunity, our federal commission has focused on a variety of educational initiatives.

Working with state, local, and private partners, we have created a Website - "Jamestown - Journey of Democracy" (www.JamestownJourney.org) - where schoolteachers across America can access, without charge, a rich variety of lesson plans that weave the Jamestown story into the teaching of civics, history, archaeology, science, and other subjects.

The experiences of all three cultures that came together at Jamestown are addressed in the lesson plans, and the contributors of curricula on the Website are as wide-ranging as the materials found there. They include the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Society, NASA, University of Virginia Center for Politics, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the educational organizations on site at Jamestown, and many others.

More than 1,500 teachers in 49 states, the District of Columbia, and 11 countries have already accessed the educational resources on the Website even before major promotional activities commence later this spring. And this fall the state's Jamestown 2007 organization will host "Jamestown Live!" - an hour-long, live Webcast to classrooms across the country focusing on Jamestown's legacies of democracy, diversity, and exploration.

Our commission is also engaging the higher-education community through a university-based conference series on the foundations and future of democracy. The series will begin this summer with an International Youth Democracy Summit at UVa, and will culminate in September, 2007, with the World Forum on the Future of Democracy, an international gathering of scholars and government leaders in Jamestown and Williamsburg.

During the intervening year, seven other university campuses in Virginia will host conferences addressing particular aspects of democratic development. One will explore the role of the judiciary in representative democracies. Another will examine the impact of free markets. Others will focus on issues related to ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity. One conference will examine the philosophical underpinnings of democracy, while another will address contemporary challenges posed by globalization, technological advances, and terrorism.

Electronic and written records of the proceedings will be published as the Jamestown Commentaries on the Foundations and Future of Democracy.

Able Planners

The conference series planning council is being ably led by the College of William & Mary's president emeritus, Timothy Sullivan, and will involve respected scholars and governmental practitioners from around the world.

To all who will pause and reflect, it is apparent that Providence has endowed the American people with incomparable blessings and a sacred trust. Freedom is God's gift to mankind, Virginia's legacy to America, and America's mission in the world.

As we mark the impending 400th anniversary with appropriate activities of commemoration, celebration, reverence, and reflection, we should resolve to use the occasion creatively to increase broad- based understanding of the remarkable legacy we share - and of our responsibility as citizens to journey on toward fulfillment of liberty's promise for all.