Syracuse Cultural Workers, located at 400 Lodi St. in Syracuse, displays a poster celebrating 250 years of resistance in the United States. Credit: Courtesy of Andy Mager

This Fourth of July marks the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, a holiday many are celebrating with fireworks, hot dogs and more.

Andy Mager found a different way to celebrate: He and the Syracuse Cultural Workers created a poster commemorating resistance movements led by marginalized peoples in hopes of putting those movements on the same pedestal as the Founding Fathers. 

Mager made the posters in part because he and Matt Meyer, a friend of Mager’s and an academic, believe the Declaration of Independence did not give unfettered freedom to everyone in 1776 — leaving enslaved people, Indigenous people, women and others to fight for their own rights.  

The poster made by SCW highlights civil rights protests, Haudenosaunee sovereignty and women’s suffrage, among other social justice movements. 

“Freedom is a constant struggle … and we want to arrive. We want to get there. We want to have it be done. But I think that that’s just not how it is,” Mager said. 

The poster highlights Mager’s and Meyer’s views on freedom in the United States: that freedom has been hard-won rather than granted through the signing of a document. Meyer, who helped work on the poster with Mager, will live that out on July Fourth. He’ll march in the “mobilization against genocides” march in Atlanta, an event organized by the Spirit of Mandela Coalition to celebrate 250 years of resistance in the United States.  

The march helped inspire the creation of the poster. 

The Syracuse Cultural Workers, founded in 1982, has recently resisted against data centers, ICE initiatives, and environmental harm. SCW is also affiliated with the Syracuse Immigrant Resource Defense Network, a coalition advocating for immigrants’ rights in Central New York. 

The SCW headquarters functions as a gift shop, stockroom, and office. The shelves are stocked with posters, stationery, calendars, and T-shirts printed with progressive messages. Mager, Meyer and other colleagues designed the Independence Day poster displayed in the front window of the shop. It honors the collective experiences of the U.S. and depicts the paths taken to obtain liberty with a collage of historical photographs. 

The Syracuse Cultural Workers’ poster celebrating 250 years of resistance. Credit: Courtesy of Andy Mager

“Change is not usually permanent,” Meyer said. “… Nor is it necessarily fast.” 

But Mager sees change moving fast in the wrong way, he said. In an interview with Central Current, Mager lamented President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and “the efforts to roll back progress.” 

While Mager believes U.S. democracy has never fully functioned as it should, he said the parts that have worked are “being really ripped out from the roots.”

“You know, people who are experiencing the threat of ICE raids or people who are concerned that they or their children will be pushed back into despair because of the efforts to roll back progress. All of us who are terrified about the democracy which has never functioned fully in the United States but is being really ripped out from the roots.” 

Mager said his goal with the poster is for people to sit with history they may see as uncomfortable. 

“Our goal isn’t to be convenient,” Mager said. “… “It’s to try and live up to the ideals that we claim. We do want to celebrate to some degree the Declaration of Independence and the ideals of it.”

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Leila Adelstein is a newsroom intern reporting on local news and writing features for the Central Current. She will be a junior at Hamilton College in the fall where she studies Public Policy and Studio...