The American Freedom Tour, a 2-day event featuring some of our nation’s most influential advocates of freedom, began this morning with an a cappella rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

Vocalist Stephen Quinn Hipsher began with a confidence appropriate for such a treasured hymn:

Say, can you see
By the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight’s last gleaming?

With minimal embellishment, he continued the second verse; attendees remained respectfully quiet:

Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched,
Were so gallantly, yeah, streaming?

Audience members could hold back no longer, and began singing along with Stephen in the third verse, a verse that portrays our nation enduring even the darkest and most treacherous of nights:

And the rockets’ red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there

And now we’re left with that most poignant of questions, a question that has been a resounding “Yes!” throughout our nation’s history:

“O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

Well, does it? And, are we?

The thunderous applause that followed the final words of that song tells us that yes, we are most emphatically the land of the free and the home of the brave, united under the stars and stripes. For the sake of our loved ones, for the sake of this shining city on a hill, the answer must be yes.

May we freshly appreciate, perhaps for some of us rediscover, the freedoms and bravery that have made our nation great.

Check back on this website for more updates from the American Freedom Tour conference. Also, follow the hashtag #americanfreedomtour on Twitter and on Facebook.

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