America celebrated its Nationwide Day of Jubilee, or a hundredth birthday, on July 4, 1876, then-President Ulysses S. Grant declaring it a “day of reflection and gratitude” as patriotic celebrations broke out throughout the quickly rising nation that was nonetheless reeling from the Civil Warfare.
“The Centennial Anniversary of the day on which the individuals of the US declared their proper to a separate and equal station among the many Powers of the Earth appears to demand an distinctive observance,” Grant stated in his June 26, 1876, proclamation encouraging spiritual providers to mark the event.
“It appears becoming that on the incidence of the hundredth anniversary of our existence as a nation a grateful acknowledgment needs to be made to Almighty God for the safety and the bounties which He has vouchsafed to our beloved nation,” the Union military hero wrote.
Because the nation barrels towards its 250th 12 months, many issues have modified, however Ulysses Dietz, the youngest great-great-grandchild of Ulysses and former first girl Julia Grant, instructed The Submit his historic ancestor would have rather a lot to be pleased with — and discover many issues stunning.
“I believe loads of nice issues have been achieved that he can be happy at as a result of they had been a part of his imaginative and prescient for what could possibly be,” Dietz stated of his great-great grandfather, who championed civil rights throughout Reconstruction.
“I believe he would additionally see loads of dangerous issues that had been additionally dangerous when he was president and be upset that we haven’t overcome that,” he added.
Surprisingly, Dietz, 71, the now-retired longtime ornamental arts curator of the Newark Museum of Artwork in New Jersey, stated his well-known lineage wasn’t a serious a part of his upbringing, and that his grandfather, Ulysses, from whom he inherited his sturdy moniker, by no means actually sat him down to speak about it.
“I’ve all the time been type of sorry about that, he died after I was 12. However the household by no means actually talked about it,” he lamented, mentioning that their ambivalence on the time could possibly be defined by Grant’s repute being at a little bit of a low level within the Sixties, “largely by way of misinformation.”
Regardless of seeing his great-great grandfather’s face each time he checked out a $50 invoice, it wasn’t till many years later that the complete weight of his household’s reference to historical past actually hit him.
The Maplewood resident was invited to offer a speech on the Common Grant Nationwide Memorial — higher often called Grant’s Tomb — in Morningside Heights in 1987, and just about winged it.
“I went in with no preparation or information, I don’t even bear in mind what I talked about. That was type of a wake-up second after I thought, , in the event that they’re gonna ask you to do these items, you higher begin studying.”
Dietz is the one one in every of his household’s era — 41 individuals — named Ulysses, all of the extra motive to study extra about his namesake.
Born Grant Ulysses Dietz, he modified his identify to Ulysses G. Dietz on the age of 15, whereas attending Exeter boarding faculty (as Ulysses Grant Jr. did).
By the point he bought to school, everybody knew him as Ulysses.
“It was the ’70s and having a bizarre identify was cool,” Dietz defined. “It wasn’t central to my being, simply a part of my id.”
However after the 1987 occasion, he began voraciously studying all the things he might get his arms on to study his household backstory, and has returned to make a speech at Grant’s Tomb each April 27 — Grant’s birthday — for the final 40 years.
As for what Grant can be most pleased with 150 years after he marked the celebration of America’s a hundredth birthday, “I believe he would see a rustic that was pluralistic and ethnically numerous and religiously numerous, the place individuals have alternative and everyone can go to school, anyone may be president,” Dietz stated.
“I believe he can be very pleased with that.”
He stated Grant, who supported the fifteenth Modification giving black males the best to vote and prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan whereas in workplace, can be “thrilled” and “shocked” by the strides the nation has made round pluralism and variety.
Wanting again on 250 years of American historical past as a complete, Dietz says he’s struck by the imaginative and prescient of the Founding Fathers in laying the groundwork that bought the nation to the place it’s right this moment, beginning with the Declaration of Independence.
“It’s type of exceptional wanting again that this group of elite, white landowners, lots of whom had been slaveowners, put collectively this doc that withstood the check of time after which adopted it up with the Structure that has additionally withstood the check of time,” he stated.
“I believe it’s exceptional that these males, with out understanding the place the nation would go, got here up with concepts that had been each bit as essential and related now as they had been 250 years in the past,” he added.
“Honoring that dedication to freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — and nonetheless enhancing on it — is one thing we needs to be very pleased with.”
