A Fourth of July dispatch for the disillusioned—and the brave: A love letter to the OG dissenters who lit the match. ✍🏼
Not all fireworks are celebratory: Some are signal flares. 🆘🇺🇸✨America was not born in peace.
It was born in defiance.
In torches and tea leaves, in voices too loud to ignore and fists too tired to be raised quietly.
This is a country built not by obedience—but by resistance:
By feet on the ground and truth on the tongue—
By a refusal to accept silence as safety.
The myth is that America was forged by men in powdered wigs, but history belongs to the hands that refused the script.
It was born when crates of tea sank into saltwater defiance.
When enslaved hands gripped stolen freedom and ran toward northern stars.
When Rosa Parks did not stand. When Stonewall did not submit.
When books were banned and still found a way to speak.
It was born every time someone lit a lantern in the dark
—not to flee, but to guide others.
🔥 The Original Arsonists
The Boston Tea Party wasn’t polite.
They vandalized property. They destroyed goods. They wore disguises.
It was illegal. It was radical. It was effective.
And it worked.
This nation’s founders risked their lives for the promise of something freer—
but it’s the radicals that kept that promise alive.
Not just in 1776, but every time someone had the courage to say:
“No. Not like this.”
🕯️ The Underground Network
When Harriet Tubman escaped slavery, she didn’t disappear quietly.
She turned around and went back—dozens of times.
Armed. Steeled. Unyielding.
She learned the routes by heart.
She carried medicine, babies, and hope in equal measure; and every mile she walked was a matchstick in the dark.
The Underground Railroad wasn’t made of metal.
It was made of people.
People who risked their lives for strangers because injustice made them family.
🪑 A Seat Refused
Rosa Parks wasn’t tired; she was strategic.
She trained for that moment. She understood the ripple it would cause.
When she stayed seated, the ground shook.
And that small act of refusal sparked an entire movement.
Dissent doesn’t have to shout.
Sometimes, it sits. And stays.
🖋️ Words That Marched
When Dr. King said “I have a dream,”
he wasn’t whispering.
He was standing in the fire of death threats, holding a dream big enough for those who’d never been allowed to sleep peacefully.
That speech didn’t just change hearts; it cracked open the conscience of a country.
And it wasn’t the first time.
Writers have always been the quiet instigators of revolution:
James Baldwin. Audre Lorde. Allen Ginsberg. Langston Hughes. Upton Sinclair.
They wielded words like matches.
🔥 The Spark in Us
You are not unpatriotic for protesting.
You are not un-American for demanding more.
You are a citizen with a conscience, and you come from a long line of beautiful, brave arsonists.
This nation was born in fire; and every time it forgets itself, it must be reminded with flame.
Not of destruction.
But of light.
Of heat.
Of renewal.
May we inherit the fire.
May we wield it with wisdom.
And may we never mistake quiet for peace.
One nation—under revision,
—Rebecca M. Bell
[@rmbellwrites]
P.S.
If they call it treason
for telling the truth—
then we were born to betray
what betrayed us first.
If this piece stirred something in you—good.
That feeling? It's the spark. Let it burn clean.
Share it. Pass the lantern.
We build fire-lines through words, through witness, through you.
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🗣️ Share if it echoed.
💬 Comment if it cracked something open.
✨Available Now:
A Collection of Momentum
👀 Coming Very Soon:
A Collection of Reverence
🗓️ Releasing 09/17/25:
Welcome to Wonderland
Written by Rebecca M. Bell
@rmbellwrites
🔔*“The nation sings—no kings, no kings, no kings.”* —“NO KINGS” from A Collection of Reverence