Fellows’ Corner: Samuel Myers Jr., 2024 Rebecca Blank Fellow

Late last November, the AAPSS welcomed eight new fellows to the Academy and invited each of them to speak to whether, given the extraordinary political circumstances we currently face in the United States, “the American experiment is in decline.” We’ve asked each of them to write brief essays that expand upon the points that they made in their induction remarks.

This series of special Fellows’ Corner posts, titled “State of the Nation,” begins with an essay from Samuel L. Myers Jr., our 2024 Rebecca Blank Fellow.

If you are an AAPSS Fellow and would like to contribute to the Fellows’ Corner in future editions of the Dispatch, please contact Jessica Erfer.

The American Experiment: For Whom?

Among Black Americans, for example, slavery, emancipation, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and state-sanctioned segregation of schools and public accommodations have made the American experiment asymmetrical to the experience of others. For many Americans, the American experiment is an experience of power, influence, and considerable political/economic success—all under the aegis of a constitutional democracy. On the other hand, the experience of many Indigenous Americans, immigrants from Mexico, railroad workers from Canton, and descendants of slaves (and often of their slave masters) is one of subordination, powerlessness, and unequal access to economic opportunities. In short, I argued last fall that there was not a single, uniform American experiment, because there were diverging paths that white men, compared to women and nonwhite Americans, faced when confronted with the unique ideal of American democracy.

Whether one adopts the Morgan Library & Museum’s definition:

The Great Experiment examined the genuinely revolutionary process that produced the first successful modern republican nation.

Or the decisive definition from the National Center for Constitutional Studies (emphasis mine):

It acknowledged that individual rights are derived from a Creator. It was based on enduring principles compatible with “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” It recognized human imperfection and that a tendency to abuse power is ever present in the human heart. It restrained those in power through a written Constitution which carefully divided, balanced, and separated the powers of government and then intricately knitted them back together again through a system of checks and balances. It left all powers with the people, except those which, by their consent, the people delegated to government and then made provision for their withdrawing that power, if it was abused.

An unchanging American experiment is thought to mean that the “American people govern themselves virtuously and freely.” I ask, though: “Whose American experiment?” The 55 founding fathers were all white men, of whom 25 were slave owners.

We are reminded:

July 4, 1776, marked the day this country declared its freedom from tyrannical British rule. This newfound liberty was first seized by white male property owners through the Declaration of Independence, and a country, built on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and protection against the excesses of government, was born.

Citizenship was limited to “free white [people] … of good character.” In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the Supreme Court ruled that “no Black person could become a citizen of the United States and thus had no protections to exercise their right to vote.” There is a long history of immigration policies that restricted naturalization to white male property owners—excluding women, nonwhite persons, and indentured servants. And even when citizenship expanded to women and nonwhites, extensive race- and gender-based barriers to voting rights remained in our national legacy. As the National Park Service notes:

After the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, women of color were often kept from the polls. African American women faced racial discrimination and were discouraged from voting through intimidation and fear. Native American women were not considered U.S. citizens until 1924. Other women could vote after 1920, yet Native American women had to wait another four years until granted citizenship.

Despite the hope and the promise of the abolition of slavery and the constitutional guarantees of equal protection of the law via the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, it took another century before federal protections against racial discrimination and segregation became permanent. And even today, in February 2025, many of the safeguards associated with these protections against racial discrimination have nearly been dismantled.

Which American experiment are we talking about? 

I contest the idea that there is one American experiment. I contest the idea that the notion of the original founding fathers is the foundation for what we now, in 2025, should expect for our children and our grandchildren and for the future. Rather, I contend that the American experiment is dynamic; it is changing; it is evolving. I have a lot of hope and a lot of optimism that play partly on the foundation that Rebecca Blank laid for my profession.

Rebecca Blank—a Minnesota native—is the namesake of the inaugural AAPSS fellowship that I was awarded. A tireless public servant, an AAPSS fellow, a former APPAM president, and a former university president, Rebecca Blank graduated from Roseville Public High School in Roseville, Minnesota, and then graduated summa cum laude from the honors program with a degree in economics from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. Like me, she received her PhD in economics from MIT. It is appropriate, then, to acknowledge the Minnesotan context of this discussion about the American experiment.

The particular brand of the American experiment that propelled Rebecca Blank to national leadership and public service was one that acknowledged the vast disparities and inequalities in social and economic outcomes that can coexist with prosperity and growth for the powerful and influential. I think Rebecca Blank would agree, perhaps because she grew up in Minnesota, that there is not just one American experiment and that some groups have been excluded by said American experiment.

Minnesota never (officially) had slavery. When it became a state in 1858, its constitution included an equal protection clause that predated the federal equal protection clause in 1868’s Fourteenth Amendment. Interracial marriages were legal in Minnesota; Blacks could vote and own property. The University of Minnesota produced distinguished attorneys, pharmacists, scientists, writers, and other professionals. One of its famed graduates, Roy Wilkins, ultimately became one of the longest-serving presidents and executive directors of the NAACP—the oldest and largest civil rights organization in America.

By the early twentieth century, Minnesota had some of the highest Black home ownership rates in the nation and fostered strong African American business and professional communities.

The floor manager for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was Hubert H. Humphrey, who had passed one of the nation’s first anti–housing discrimination laws during his tenure as the mayor of Minneapolis (1945–1948). Humphrey led the state as a senator and then the nation as vice president during the years when federal civil rights laws banning discrimination and racial segregation came into being.

Minnesota has a legacy of leading social change and seeking racial equality. At one point, the University of Minnesota’s medical school was noted for having produced the largest number of Black physicians west of the Mississippi River. In 1959, the university’s department of economics graduated its first African American PhD, Marcus Alexis, who went on to become a leading economist at the University of Rochester and Northwestern University.

The American experiment was alive and well for African Americans in Minnesota, who thrived on the vision that the goals of fairness and social justice could be achieved through full participation in a progressive political system with adequate checks and balances and voting rights for (nearly) all.

Ask Sharon Sayles Belton—the first African American to chair the Minneapolis City Council and, later, the first woman and first African American to serve as mayor of Minneapolis—whether she believes in the American experiment, and I am confident that she will agree that nearly anything is possible within a constitutional framework that enshrines freedom and justice for all—or at least Minnesota’s version of freedom and justice.

Minnesota is arguably one of the best states to live and work in America. So, how did Minnesota become, by the twenty-first century, one of the states with the largest racial gaps in unemployment rates, earnings, home ownership rates, and even drowning rates?  The answer is that the promise of the American experiment is uneven, constantly changing, and at times elusive to newcomers and to those from the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

My Minnesota experience suggests to me that the question of the American experiment is one that is evolving for each new generation. Many of my students have been dismayed by the rapid changes in civil rights and human rights protections since January 20, 2025. They have expressed frustration at how quickly the retrenchment of programs and policies designed to guarantee equality and freedom—regardless of one’s race, color, immigration status, gender identity, religion, or national origin—has raced across the nation. How could this be possible? My response to them is that the American experiment means different things for different groups. For groups that historically have been marginalized, stigmatized, disadvantaged, and excluded by the American experiment and consequently have the experience of resilience and recovery from setbacks and the ability to see beyond the immediate crises, there is another American experiment awaiting. It is an optimistic, positive-facing, and exhilarating experience.

We know that—at least for now—we don’t have a monarchy; we have presidential term limits; there remains separation of the courts, the legislature, and the executive branch. And at least for now, there are elections every two years in the House of Representatives, which can and often do change the balance of political power. Knowing these things about the power of the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, and the ability to resist and engage in nonviolent protest, each group can envision and capture a new American experiment that expands the dream of freedom and justice for all.

I hope we within the Academy will continue to challenge the notion of a single static definition of the American experiment. I hope that an evolving and resilient view of the American experiment will emerge.

—Samuel L. Myers, Jr., 2024 Rebecca Blank Fellow