The pastor’s voice booms through the speakers of a church that’s older than America.

“If we’re not careful,” the Rev. W. Douglas Banks says, “fear can start talking so loud that we forget what God said in the first place.”

“We have to be brave enough to come out of our hiding places. In America, there’s been so much divisiveness and separation, and the emphasis on that has been profound.”

Rev. W. Douglas Banks

He doesn’t mention current events or politics. But the 60-year-old knows he’s speaking at a time when the country is deeply divided — and at a moment when many are afraid. He hopes his message will be heard.

Banks’ own fears could have stopped him from being in this pulpit.

He says he’s the first Black pastor to lead St. Luke’s in Trappe, Pennsylvania, where the congregation is mostly White.

And when the opportunity arose at the 284-year-old church, he was hesitant at first.

But the experience has been rewarding, and eye-opening, Banks says. He’s the pastor of a Black church, too — The Church of Transformation. And while the styles of worship may be different, he says, “people are people.”

“We have to be brave enough to come out of our hiding places,” he says. “In America, there’s been so much divisiveness and separation, and the emphasis on that has been profound, which has made people go to their comfort zones and just be around people who look like them and talk like them and want to be like them, instead of being brave enough to cross the aisle, even politically.”

A framed family tree is on the wall of his St. Luke’s office. Banks’ name is part of it. So are the names of his ancestors: Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Banks is their fifth great-grandson.

Over the years, the pastor has wrestled with the complicated history of his family and his country. Now he draws on that heritage as he works toward racial reconciliation.

“Inside of me physically exists the DNA of both enslaved person and enslaver. … There was a time, if I could have had an operation to remove Thomas Jefferson's DNA from me, I would have chosen to do that,” he says. “But (now) I'm very comfortable in my own skin and recognize that in me is the best and worst of America at the same time, and it's my choice of what I will lean into.”

These days, Banks says he’s leaning into telling the truth. He also teaches a course on race in America at Thomas Jefferson University. Banks is committed to sharing his family’s story, even though he knows some would rather he kept quiet — like those who still deny that Jefferson and Hemings had children, including some members of Jefferson’s family.

“I don’t think we can get beyond things,” he says, “if we’re not willing to face them.”

Walking across the University of Virginia’s campus on his way to watch a lacrosse tournament, Cabell Pasco is clearly at home.

The 21-year-old economics major just finished his third year at the school, which was created by one of America’s founding fathers. The significance of that legacy isn’t lost on him.

Pasco is a sixth great-grandson of William Hooper, a lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence from North Carolina.

And as a member of the official society for signers’ descendants, he’s written about that founding document.

Recently, the last line caught his attention — where signers pledge their lives, fortunes and “sacred honor” to the cause.

“That's something that my generation could really use to just move forward in appreciating what this country has done for them, and how it's set them up,” he says.

Today’s youth, he says, are prone to turning to AI or Google for answers, or parroting parents’ thoughts rather than developing their own. It’s far too common, he says, for many to rail about what’s wrong with America rather than appreciating what’s right.

“We are in a relatively good spot in this world. We are extremely blessed to be born in this country. The opportunities that we do have at our fingertips, if we put in the work, I think that is very much still an image that our founders created and is still alive.”

Cabell Pasco

“Now it feels like it’s completely fine to just walk out and say, ‘I hate this country. This country is horrible,’” he says. But Pasco feels there’s a way to debate what’s happening in America without denigrating it.

“We are in a relatively good spot in this world. We are extremely blessed to be born in this country,” he says. “The opportunities that we do have at our fingertips, if we put in the work, I think that is very much still an image that our founders created and is still alive.”

Living in a house near campus with 17 other young men, Pasco says he’s no stranger to debate. His housemates are all members of Christian ministry groups. Still, Pasco says there are plenty of ways they don’t see eye to eye. There’s a “wide spectrum” of views on politics in the house, according to Pasco, who thinks residents’ shared Christian values help them talk to each other respectfully.

“People are really good at asking questions — not trying to get their point out or be the loudest in the room,” he says. “They’re really inquisitive and curious and trying to hear your perspective.”

Pasco wishes that’s how things were outside his university’s gates.

“You can go out into the world, and you find yourself yelling and trying to get your point across, and it's like, what am I doing?” he says.

Chelsea Lowe sits on the living room couch, weaving her daughter’s hair into a tight French braid with precision and speed.

She spent the morning on the sidelines of her son’s soccer tournament. And soon their family of four will be racing out the door of their Iowa home once again.

The 38-year-old mom knows exactly how long it will take to get to gymnastics tryouts for 8-year-old Elizabeth, and when they’ll be heading back to the soccer fields for 11-year-old Tyler’s next game.

Lowe is an expert at backwards math.

And she’s a five-star driver in the system she dubs “Mom Uber.”

With two kids juggling many sports and activities, and a firefighter husband who’s often on duty, Lowe’s weekends can be intense.

She wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’m just excited that they’re excited,” she says of her children.

That’s not to say being a parent is easy. Lowe is on long-term disability due to debilitating migraines. And lately, she says, what’s happening in Washington has made everything feel more precarious for her family, and for many of her friends and neighbors.

“I'm terrified as a parent. I'm absolutely terrified for where we're headed as a country and where we're at as a country right now,” she says.

“There's too much going on. I can't fix everything on a Wednesday in Iowa. But I can work on it. The most I can do right now as a parent in Iowa is show up for my kids and their friends and make my house a safe space and make everything I do a safe place.”

Chelsea Lowe

Lowe is a descendant of two signers of the Declaration of Independence: Benjamin Franklin is her seventh great-grandfather, and Roger Sherman is her fifth great-grandfather. And in her view, America today has veered far off course from the founding fathers’ vision. Politicians are self-centered now, she says, and seem to have lost sight of what the focus should be: creating a better world for future generations.

“If our forefathers saw what was happening in our Senate, our House, in our White House, I think they'd be mortified,” she says.

In the face of that, Lowe says she’s controlling what she can.

“There's too much going on. I can't fix everything on a Wednesday in Iowa. But I can work on it,” she says. “The most I can do right now as a parent in Iowa is show up for my kids and their friends and make my house a safe space and make everything I do a safe place.”

In her corner of the country, Lowe says she is working to build the kind of community she knows America can be.

And on this weekend afternoon, she sees what that looks like. Her daughter sails through gymnastics tryouts. Her son’s team wins the tournament. Lowe saw how hard Elizabeth trained for this moment, and how Tyler’s team this year embodied that word.

“The way they all play together…it’s not one star player making all the goals,” Lowe says. “It was so cool. And in the pouring rain, they were smiling.”

There’s so much our kids can teach us, Lowe says. She hopes more Americans will take the time to learn.

Stephanie Nelson needed a reminder.

The 39-year-old middle school language arts teacher in Gloucester, Virginia, sees her students struggling with so many challenges. And she knows someone needs to fight for them.

So recently, Nelson got a tattoo on her right forearm. It’s the signature of Thomas Nelson Jr., the first governor of Virginia, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Stephanie Nelson’s ninth great-grandfather.

“It reminds me of my purpose. And realizing that, when I know I need to step up and do something, having the courage to do that and having the commitment to do that,” she says.

The classrooms of Virginia today are a far cry from the Revolutionary War battlefields where many Founding Fathers fought. But Nelson said there are plenty of moments that test her resolve and remind her how important it is to fight for her students.

“I have kids coming to me that do struggle with reading, and COVID was a part of that, and I’ve been told by some leaders that we can’t blame everything on COVID, and that’s true…but I think we have to take into reality that it’s still impacting us.”

Nelson says reading skills aren’t the only thing she’s teaching her students.

Another lesson she’s tried to convey: to look at issues from multiple sides and become “critical consumers of information.”

Even for grown-ups, she notes, that can be easier said than done.

“I feel like there's so much hate being spewed from both sides that we're losing sight of what's most important, and that's protecting our people — like, protecting the humans, the humanity of the country,” she says. “I sometimes shut off the news, because I don’t know what is truth anymore and what isn’t, and that shouldn’t be the case.”

For the country, Nelson says, “this is a very scary time.” And the divisiveness can be overwhelming.

“There's so much hate being spewed from both sides that we're losing sight of what's most important, and that's protecting our people.”

Stephanie Nelson

“We need to look back at what it looks like to come together, what it looks like to be more of a united country. That's why we are called the United States. And I would not say that, at this point, in this time, we are united,” she says. “That doesn't mean that we have to agree with everything about each other, but I think just coming down to the common core of what makes us human, and valuing people, and valuing the sacrifices that people make.”

Shirley Hunter Smith rushes to her antique wooden desk and opens her laptop.

An unexpected detail just caught her attention inside a folder pulled from the garage of her Indiana home. A photocopied page inside features a portrait of Abraham Clark — wearing a wig.

“He hated that look. … So that is surprising,” Smith says.

Clark was a land surveyor and self-taught lawyer from New Jersey who signed the Declaration of Independence. He’s also Smith’s fifth great-grandfather. Biographies of him, Smith says, note that he “hated pretense and elitism” and refused to wear wigs.

She doesn’t know the story behind this image, or why Clark was depicted this way — but she’s determined to find out.

Smith, 74, has a doctorate in history and loves digging into America’s past. In recent years, she’s focused on researching the signers’ wives, who she says also made huge sacrifices for the country that should be honored.

There’s so much she wishes more Americans knew about the signers and their families — especially the less famous ones.

“They gave us freedom. They gave us choice. They gave us liberty.”

Shirley Hunter Smith

Signing the declaration and denouncing King George III, Smith says, was more than a symbolic act for colonial patriots.

“It was nothing short of treason. … They thought it was so important to do that, they were willing to risk their lives and…their families,” Smith says.

Her ancestor, for example, had one son who died fighting in the Revolutionary War, and two sons who were imprisoned by the British.

The Crown offered to release them if Clark recanted his signature, Smith says. But he refused.

One of his sons was starved while in prison, and his health never recovered, even after his release.

Dedication to the cause cost other signers their homes and finances, Smith says. And the new republic’s success was far from guaranteed.

Clark and other founding fathers would be amazed that America has endured, she says, referencing the late historian David McCullough.

“Somebody asked him the question, ‘What would surprise the signers most if they could see America today?’ And his answer was, ‘That it worked.’ Because it was an experiment.”

Smith says the founders’ faith in that experiment helped shape her life. Their vision, she says, gave her the chance to make her own choices, like going to college in her 40s and pursuing advanced degrees while she was working.

“They gave us freedom. They gave us choice. They gave us liberty,” she says.

Researching online from her desk, Smith discovers the 1781 portrait of a wig-wearing Clark was displayed in an out-of-print book she’s never read on the Declaration of Independence. She orders a copy as soon as she finds it.

Skylar Flechsig doesn’t often talk about being a descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

“I’m aware of when I say it. I’m aware of who I say it to. I’m aware of the connotations that it carries,” she says, noting that many of the 56 White men who signed the document owned slaves.

But Flechsig says she imagines her ancestor who signed the declaration would be surprised to learn about her life.

“I doubt that John Morton, 250 years ago, was thinking, you know, in X amount of time, ‘I'm going to have a descendant with purple and red hair and piercings and tattoos that's working to get citizenship for people that I don't think should have citizenship,’” says Flechsig.

Morton was a farmer who eventually became a sheriff and judge. Flechsig, his 10th great-granddaughter, is a 26-year-old former teacher in North Carolina who just finished her first year of law school at Elon University and is considering pursuing immigration law. She’s contemplating other fields, too, and notes an upcoming summer internship at The Hague might turn her career in a different direction.

This much is certain: Flechsig feels many people’s rights are being unjustly threatened daily, and she wants to do more to fight back.

“I always want to have a job that is making the space around me better…helping where I feel like I can, and using my voice to speak for the people who can't speak right now, or who will face more severe consequences than I will for using my voice,” she says.

Flechsig identifies as queer and says she’s felt the polarized state of the country even within her own family. She grew so concerned during the 2024 election that she made the decision to cut ties with relatives who supported President Donald Trump.

“It’s very personal for me. … I was like, ‘No, I'm done pretending that this is OK, I'm done pretending that we can keep sweeping this under the rug. … You can't continue to vote for this person who is actively trying to take away my rights, my students' rights ... you can't do those things and then still claim that we're family.”

“Everybody is so focused on their own survival. If gas is $4 a gallon where I live right now, and most people are making $12 an hour, what are we supposed to do?”

Skylar Flechsig

The signers, she says, would be “embarrassed and horrified” to see how divided America has become. A path forward is possible, she says, but hard to see.

“It will take a lot of cooperation and getting over ourselves as individuals. And I don't think that we necessarily have the capability to do that right now, because everybody is so focused on their own survival,” she says. “If gas is $4 a gallon where I live right now, and most people are making $12 an hour, what are we supposed to do?”

Laura Murphy keeps a surprising memento in her Washington home: a framed copy of former President Ronald Reagan’s signature.

It’s a reminder of something many said would be impossible.

Murphy, now 70 and semi-retired, remembers how hard she pushed for the 1982 extension of the Voting Rights Act. Back then, she was a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, working to win support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Earlier, Reagan had said he wouldn’t sign it. Murphy asked for the president’s autograph at a White House reception the day he did.

Now, she says, the framed signature feels like a relic from a bygone era of bipartisan cooperation.

“It’s so tragic to me that we could convince Republicans then, but we can’t convince them now,” she says. “You think progress is like a line moving up, when progress is like a roller coaster.”

The May Supreme Court decision gutting the measure devastated her. To Murphy, it feels like America is regressing.

“This whole period has been like a stake in my heart,” Murphy says.

For years, she’s fought to expand access to America’s promise.

But she says her own family’s story shows the contradictions between the ideals espoused during the country’s founding and the realities many face today.

Murphy was well into her career at the ACLU when she learned she descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence through a grandson who had a daughter with an enslaved woman. She went on to learn that Philip Livingston, the signer who’s her fifth great-grandfather, had close ties to the slave trade, too.

“He was my family’s founding father and their enslaver,” she says. It’s a painful truth that Murphy says is important to acknowledge.

“My ancestors didn’t envision women, indigenous people and enslaved people as part of the American Dream. … Maybe we’re living up to their dream, but we’re not living up to a collective dream that advances all Americans,” she says.

But Murphy says a recent trip to Philadelphia helped rekindle her hopes for the future.

A few weeks ago, she helped campaign for her nephew in a Democratic primary there, just miles away from the site where their ancestor once signed the declaration.

Meeting voters who supported Chris Rabb’s campaign was energizing, she says.

“You had women in hijabs and you had men in yarmulkes. There were members of the LGBTQ community. It just was so joyous and exciting to see young people feeling a responsibility to influence our democratic system … They’re not angry, they’re determined, which makes a really big difference.”

“My ancestors didn’t envision women, indigenous people and enslaved people as part of the American Dream. … Maybe we’re living up to their dream, but we’re not living up to a collective dream that advances all Americans.”

Laura Murphy

Rabb won the primary, and with no Republican challenger in this heavily Democratic House district, he’s poised to become Pennsylvania’s newest representative in Congress. Murphy sees his victory as a reminder to keep fighting.

“Even when my government abandons me,” she says, “I never abandon my nation.”

David Brewster stands beside a traffic pylon on the narrow shoulder of a Vermont road.

The criss-crossed beams of a temporary steel bridge span the river in front of him, slicing through a panorama of lush trees. The ravine below is a mess of cranes, trucks, dirt mounds and neon fences — far from a pristine, pastoral landscape you’d expect to catch an artist’s attention.

But Brewster is drawn to the chaos and contrasts.

He’s returned to this spot so often that many of the construction workers here know him now. And he knows them, too.

That’s as much a part of the beauty he sees here as the bridge he’s painting for the fourth time this spring.

Brewster is an artist and a sixth great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin. The 66-year-old calls himself a “professional observer,” and says one thing he often notices makes him hopeful about America: the way passers-by transform when they see him painting.

“They just light up. … They stop what they're doing, they lift their eyes up from their iPhone, and they look out at the world. And they get it,” he says. “What's alive and well and unique to the American spirit is a kind of creativity and original thinking. And a desire to forge a culture that benefits this wonderful soup of humanity.”

As he paints this June morning, Brewster chats with an Afghan immigrant who’s working on the project while also completing a civil engineering degree. “This,” Brewster says, “is the American story.”

“I'm really hoping that it's just gotten so bad, and so ugly, and so incomprehensible, that it can only get better. … I think democracy and America will overcome this horrible adolescence.”

David Brewster

There’s another story being told a lot in America these days, he says. Many who wanted the 2024 election to have a different outcome are sad and exhausted, he says. “I think people are grieving,” Brewster says. But the artist says he isn’t.

“I'm upset. … But I feel like something good is going to come out of this. ... I'm really hoping that it's just gotten so bad, and so ugly, and so incomprehensible, that it can only get better. … I think democracy and America will overcome this horrible adolescence,” he says.

Three Franklinia trees are among the many flowers and plants on the 100-acre Vermont mountain farm where Brewster, his partner and their four dogs live. The tree species was named after Brewster’s famous forefather by the Philadelphia botanist who first discovered it in Georgia, more than a decade before the Declaration of Independence was signed.

It’s now believed to be extinct in the wild, but on this farm and other places where it’s been cultivated, the Franklinia is still growing. This year, after a winter of heavy snowfall, Brewster hopes his Franklinia trees’ flowers will bloom for the first time.