What Independence Day Demands of Us

A message from Sedric Davis, Founder & CEO, DaisyMe Foundation

Two hundred and fifty years ago today, fifty-six men signed their names to a document that changed the world. They declared — boldly, dangerously, at great personal risk — that all people are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I have read those words hundreds of times. And every July 4th, I return to the same question that has driven the work of DaisyMe Foundation since our founding:

What does it mean to pursue happiness when you cannot access healthcare?

This is not a rhetorical question. For millions of Americans — disproportionately Black, Brown, low-income, and rural — it is the lived reality of every single day. This Independence Day, I want to sit with that question honestly. And I want to share why I believe the answer to it is the most important civil rights work of our generation.

The United States turns 250 years old this July 4th. It is a milestone worth celebrating — and a moment worth reckoning with.

By almost every measure of national progress, this country has come far. And by almost every measure of health equity, we have not come far enough.

Consider these facts:

Black Americans still die younger. According to the CDC, the life expectancy gap between Black and white Americans persists in 2026 — driven not by genetics, but by decades of structural disinvestment in the communities where Black Americans live, work, and raise their children. In some counties across the Deep South, that gap exceeds ten years.

25 million Americans remain uninsured. Despite the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion, and decades of reform efforts, one in thirteen Americans has no health coverage. The uninsured are disproportionately people of color, immigrants, and workers in low-wage jobs that offer no benefits.

Maternal mortality in the U.S. is a national emergency. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any high-income country in the world. Black women die in childbirth at nearly three times the rate of white women — a disparity that holds even when controlling for income and education. This is not a mystery. It is the predictable result of a healthcare system that was not built with Black women in mind.

Rural communities are healthcare deserts. More than 60 million Americans live in rural areas where primary care is scarce, hospitals have closed, and the nearest specialist may be hours away. Rural residents are more likely to delay care, more likely to be diagnosed late, and more likely to die from conditions that are entirely preventable.

These are not statistics. These are people. These are our neighbors, our families, our communities.

In the winter of 1777, smallpox was killing Continental soldiers faster than the British Army was. General George Washington faced a choice: inoculate his troops with a procedure that was controversial, painful, and not yet fully understood — or watch his army collapse from within.

He chose inoculation. It worked. Historians now argue that Washington's decision to mandate variolation for the Continental Army was one of the pivotal factors in the survival of the American Revolution.

The lesson has never changed: public health is a matter of national survival. When we invest in the health of our communities, we invest in the future of this country.

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 did not intend its promises for Black Americans, Indigenous peoples, or women. That is a historical fact, not an accusation. The work of every generation since has been to expand the circle of who those promises include.

We are still doing that work. Health equity is part of it.

For nearly two centuries after the founding of this republic, Black Americans were legally barred from white hospitals, denied treatment by white physicians, and excluded from health insurance programs. The Hill-Burton Act of 1946 — which funded the construction of hospitals across the country — explicitly permitted racial segregation in those facilities.

It was not until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 that the legal architecture of healthcare segregation began to fall. The health disparities we see today are not random. They are the compounded interest of deliberate exclusion — and closing them requires understanding how they were created.

Long before the term "community health worker" existed, Black communities built their own health infrastructure. Historically Black colleges trained physicians when white medical schools refused to admit Black students. Black nurses, midwives, and healers served communities that the formal healthcare system ignored.

Today, research confirms what those communities always knew: trusted community messengers are among the most effective tools for closing health disparities. Community health workers reduce emergency room visits, improve chronic disease management, increase vaccination rates, and help people navigate a system that was not designed to be navigated easily.

This is the model DaisyMe Foundation is built on. It is not new. It is proven.

The ACA extended coverage to more than 20 million Americans and ended some of the most egregious insurance industry practices. It was a landmark achievement. It was also not enough.

Medicaid coverage gaps still leave millions of low-income adults — disproportionately in Southern states that refused expansion — without a pathway to care. Mental health parity remains more promise than practice. Prescription drug costs continue to force impossible choices on families with chronic illness.

The work is unfinished. It will remain unfinished until we decide, as a nation, that healthcare is a right and not a privilege.

I did not start DaisyMe Foundation because I had all the answers. I started it because I had seen too many people fall through the cracks of a system that was supposed to catch them — and I believed we could build something better.

Here is what that looks like in practice:

Navigation. We help individuals and families understand their coverage options, find providers who accept their insurance, and access the care they have earned. Healthcare navigation sounds simple. In practice, it is the difference between a diagnosis and a missed one.

Education. Health literacy is power. When people understand their rights in a clinical setting, when they know what questions to ask and what answers to demand, outcomes improve. We deliver health literacy programming that puts that power in the hands of the communities we serve.

Advocacy. Individual navigation is not enough. We also push for the systemic changes — in policy, in practice, in institutional culture — that address the root causes of health inequity rather than just managing its symptoms.

Partnership. We build bridges between pharmaceutical companies, health systems, payers, and the communities most impacted by health disparities. Those bridges do not build themselves. They require trust, time, and the willingness to hold all parties accountable.

This is the work. It is not glamorous. It is not fast. But it is necessary — and it is working.

I grew up in a community where people did not go to the doctor unless something was very wrong. Not because they did not care about their health. Because they could not afford to. Because the nearest clinic was far away. Because they had learned, over generations, that the healthcare system was not always a safe place for people who looked like them.

That experience is why I do this work. And it is why I refuse to let Independence Day pass without naming the gap between the America we celebrate and the America that too many of our neighbors actually live in.

Freedom is not just the absence of chains. It is the presence of possibility. It is the ability to live fully, to age with dignity, to raise healthy children, to pursue happiness without the constant weight of unmanaged illness.

That kind of freedom is what DaisyMe Foundation is working toward. Not for some Americans. For all of them.

If this message resonates with you — if you believe that healthcare equity is a moral imperative and not just a policy debate — I want to hear from you.

We are always looking for volunteers, partners, advocates, and donors who share our conviction that the promise of July 4th, 1776 is still worth fighting for.

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Happy Independence Day. May this 250th anniversary bring us closer to the America we were promised — and may we have the courage to do the work that gets us there.

— Sedric Davis Founder & CEO, DaisyMe Foundation

DaisyMe Foundation is a registered Texas nonprofit corporation and IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization (EIN: 42-2944282). We serve underrepresented communities across the United States through health education, advocacy, and navigation.