Governor Moore Delivers “Work of Patriotism” Address for America’s 250th Anniversary

Updated: Saturday, July 4, 2026

---

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Governor Wes Moore today delivered an Independence Day Address titled the “Work of Patriotism” to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary as a historic moment in our country’s history. From the Maryland State House in Annapolis, joined by veterans, service members, military families, service year option participants and alumni, and community leaders, the governor made it clear that patriotism means loving this country enough to serve it, tell the truth about it, and fight to make it better. 

Yesterday, the governor did a full media blitz, talking to national, local, and independent creators to preview his address.

​Governor Moore’s “Work of Patriotism” speech as delivered: 

Happy Independence Day, everybody. 

Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you all. Good morning, good morning. Thank you all so much. Thank you. 

Happy Independence Day, and welcome to the Maryland State House, where a floor below us, in the old Senate Chamber, General George Washington surrendered his commission, and with it the power to place himself above our country. 

This deeply patriotic act established that this new nation would take a different path than those who had come before, an aspiration that power would not be passed down by birthright or bloodline or last name, that opportunity would be earned in a new way. That act of patriotism was a powerful idea, and it set the stage for the nation that we live in today. 

But today we do face a different test and a different question. What does the work of patriotism require of us? This is a day of reverence, but it also must be a day of reflection, because the founding fathers knew this country was unfinished. In fact, they wrote a document that could be amended. That was not a flaw, that was a function, and the ideals captured at our founding were unprecedented in 1776 and also they remain unfinished in 2026. 

The history of our country and the history of this state, it is powerful and it is painful. It is complex, but inside that complexity is something uniquely American, the strength for self-correction and the strength to self-heal. 

My grandfather taught me that. 

He was born in South Carolina, the child of Jamaican immigrants, and when he was just a boy, he and his parents fled in the dead of the night. The Ku Klux Klan chased them away because his father was an outspoken Black minister. 

My grandfather's earliest memories was of a nation rejecting him for something that should have been a source of pride, not prejudice. Most of his family vowed to never return to America, but my grandfather loved this country too much to let the cruelty of some determine his destination. 

So he came back, and the late great Reverend Dr. James Joshua Thomas became the first black minister in the history of the Dutch Reformed Church. 

In his endless humility, he used to say, "This country will be incomplete without me.” But you know what? My grandfather was right. And on this Independence Day, I want to be clear, America would be incomplete without all of us. 

That is the patriotism that my grandfather instilled in me. Yet, today the very premise of patriotism is under attack. Its meaning is being narrowed, its purpose is being distorted, and we cannot let that happen. 

So today I want to talk about why this matters, and how we can move forward together. 

It matters because America's strength has never come from what we claim for ourselves. It has always come from what we give to one another. We are a nation of strength because we are a nation of sacrifice and a nation of service. 

Our ancestors refused to give up on the hope of America, even when America refused to extend its full promise to all. They could have decided this country was too unequal or too unforgiving to be worth the sacrifice. But, it was the women who served as the greatest conductors of the Underground Railroad in the Eastern Shore who led their families to freedom. It was the women in Baltimore who worked in factories while their husbands went to war. It was the young lawyers at the NAACP who argued in front of the Supreme Court, that separate does not mean equal. It was the ministers and the rabbis and the imams who left their pulpits and their synagogues and their temples to provide comfort to those who had never seen it before.

It was the Union steel workers who prepared our nation for war, and it was the nurses whose hands that healed a nation seeking peace. They were patriots, and instead of yielding to the injustices, they fought for freedoms that they themselves might never fully enjoy, because patriotism is not simply pride in what America has been, it's taking ownership for what America can become. That is the work of patriotism. 

Patriotism is neither passive nor performative. Patriotism is not selfish, it is selfless. 

But today there are those who will use patriotism to justify pulling books from schools and rewriting history until it comforts those in power. In reality, that's not patriotism, that's nationalism. And nationalism is not an extension of patriotism; they are not interchangeable. There's a difference, and that does matter. 

Patriotism asks you to fight for values and an ideal. Today's version of nationalism asks you to fight for a person or a group. Patriotism wants you to build something bigger than yourself, but nationalism emboldens people to feel bigger than somebody else, to name the grievance, to find the target, to give people someone to blame. The anxiety that creates is where nationalism thrives. 

People worry about our economy, that it will leave them behind. People are watching their children work more, yet earn less. Americans are fed up with watching politicians profit off of public office. 

Too many feel that our politics has become tribal, that our political system once felt like a gift, but the politics of today feel like a grift. 

Too many watch as military conflict starts to feel like a conquest, where those who wear the uniform are asked to do the impossible, and those back home are asked to pay for the unnecessary. So starting war without a purpose is not patriotic. Ending a war without achievement is not victory, and telling soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines otherwise is not leadership. 

It's actions like these that make people increasingly skeptical, and that skepticism is not unfounded. That skepticism is not unpatriotic. The truth is, I still harbor skepticism, and I'm the governor. Skepticism can be our companion, but skepticism can never be our captor. 

So how do we move forward together? Not by putting our heads in the sand, not by hunting for someone to blame. We move forward the way Americans always have, by doing the work to make things better. 

Patriotism asks us to see our humanity in each other. It asks us to fight not just for what's in front of us, but it asks us to fight for what we see when we close our eyes. It asks us to do what those who came before us did, to fight for the hope of a future, even if we will never see it, to know their neighbor's pain or dark pain too, to know that the person who speaks a different language holds the same aspirations that we do, and that the person returning home from incarceration deserves the same second chance that we were given, to remember that God's grace is not only offered to the saint, God's grace is offered to the sinner too.

We've come through a civil war, we've come through the Gilded Age, we've come through Reconstruction and the Depression.

What has sustained this country, though, is that through every one of those trials, there have been people who believe that this union can be made just a little more perfect. 

It's veterans like Major James Capers, and as he told me when I had the chance to speak with him, his path to service in the Marine Corps all started at Carver Vocational Technical High School in Baltimore City, Maryland. In 1967, when his reconnaissance team was ambushed in Vietnam, he was hit again and again. He kept directing fire and protecting his men. The rescue helicopter was too heavy to lift off, and Major Capers gave the order to leave him behind, and his Marines refused. Every single one of them made it out, and just a few weeks ago the President of the United States awarded him the Medal of Honor nearly 60 years after he earned it. I congratulate Baltimorean Major James Capers on this wrong being righted. 

And a generation before him, a Marylander named Marie Edmée LeRoux deployed to France during World War One. She served as a telephone operator with the US Army Signal Corps, one of the trailblazing women known as the “Hello Girls” on the Western Front. She connected tactical commands, but when these women came home, America denied veteran status. Not until 1977 did our government finally acknowledge their service, and a century later Congress awarded LeRoux and the “Hello Girls” the Congressional Gold Medal.

Almost 150 years before her, a Black and Indigenous soldier named Prince Ames fought at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. For nearly six years, he fought for a country and a cause that did not yet include him, but that he perhaps believed maybe one day it would include his children, and maybe even his children's children. 

And today in a building that was partially built by the hands of enslaved people, I, his great-great-great-great-great grandson, now serve as the first Black governor in Maryland's history.

We are a nation of strength, because we are a nation of sacrifice and service, where America asks us to serve a purpose bigger than ourselves, and I believe deeply that service will save us, because when one neighbor gets involved and pulls in another, they do the hard work together, and that is where progress is made. 

In 2023, we launched a first in the nation service year option for our high school graduates. While our young people give back, they lay the foundation for their future success through job training and mentorship programs, and also they create a lifelong habit of service to our state and to our nation, and that is something that we so desperately need. 

Five Maryland Corp members and alumni are here with us today. 

Michael spent his year with Ship of Frederick County, helping unhoused students reach their education and vocational goals, and this fall he's attending Mount St. Mary's University to study cybersecurity. 

Crystal grew up in a military family, and after her service year, Crystal chose to keep serving Maryland, and today she's a technical library assistant at the Department of Legislative Services, just steps away from this very state house, and she will tell you that service is in her blood. 

Her younger brother, Toby, is in his second year of the program, serving at The Complete Player Charity. He mentors fourth graders, and he helps lead the Maryland Corps members coming up behind him. 

Chris is only 21 years old. He's already helped lead a $750,000 neighborhood and youth development project. 

And Isaiah, Isaiah served as a project manager at Action Youth Media in Silver Spring, where he taught young people to tell their own stories and music, and this fall he will join AmeriCorps in Aurora, Colorado. 

To Michael and to Crystal, and to Toby, and to Chris, and Isaiah, and all the other young people who are leading the way. Thank you. 

My grandfather was maybe the most patriotic person I've ever known. 

I joined the army at 17 years old, and I remember the pride, the pride that he had in my decision. He taught me that true patriotism is not a passive activity, because your love of country will be tested in both big ways and small. 

While I was serving in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division Airborne…

While I was serving with the 82nd, he passed away, and the last gift that he ever gave me was a Bible. It was a Bible that I carried in my flak vest the countless times that I had to leave the wire, and inside it he wrote four words: “Have faith, not fear.” 

Fear is the accelerant of nationalism. 

Faith is the foundation of patriotism. 

So, today and every day, let's choose faith. 

A faith that the impact of our work will be felt for generations to come, a faith that we are fighting for a country that is worth fighting for, a faith that when it's our turn to hand this country off to the next generation, that our descendants will say that we understand the assignment, the faith that our best days are still ahead of us, and that is the work of patriotism. 

Thank you. God bless this great nation, and God bless the United States of America.