When I was in high school, I would regularly hitchhike home along a seven-mile trek through Florissant, Ferguson and Jennings in north St. Louis County. On any street, I would walk to the curb, mindlessly extend my right arm straight out and point my thumb up, watching every car go by. It never took long for someone to stop for me.
“Where you going?” the driver, always a stranger, would ask. He would take me as far as he could along his route and drop me off, because he never had to adjust his course to accommodate me. I just got out and began the process again. I never had any trouble, and my parents never objected.
Now 50 years later, that ease of coming and going reminds me of a universal freedom not articulated enough in America: freedom of movement. It’s not in the Constitution, but it’s deeply embedded in our culture. I hail this freedom as one whose earlier career as a reporter, editor and publisher depended on our First Amendment rights. I benefited from and defended freedom of the press, religion, speech and peaceable assembly with uncompromising passion. Those inscribed freedoms seem to generate others, producing a civic life imbued with all kinds of liberties.
I think of the many ordinary ways we take our extraordinary freedom of movement for granted. Enter a local diner or church or Walmart in any town, and nobody stops me – all free entry. Where I have to pay to get in, like a theater or hotel room or Disney World, if I have the money, I can go where I want when I want. Some venues, such as a Super Bowl or an Ivy League university, have always felt beyond my means, so economic barriers (for me and everyone else) are real.
It wasn’t until I was older that I better understood other limitations on freedom of movement, like the immoral Jim Crow laws that still existed when I was a kid, or in modern days, more subtle but real acts of discrimination. I learned that my hero, Bob Gibson, endured unfair treatment at hotels and restaurants as a Black pitcher on his rise to the St. Louis Cardinals. Such shameful historical treatment needs to be acknowledged. Two decades ago, a Black friend in Springfield with a doctorate degree told me he would never buy gas after dark here, explaining as if I would understand, “It just isn’t worth it.” That surprised and saddened me.
Also, new restrictions have emerged in my lifetime, such as airport checkpoints after 9/11, secure entrances to many private office buildings and locks and metal detectors in schools. Sadly, those are all necessary. I wondered aloud after 9/11, now 25 years ago, how much freedom we would be willing to surrender in the name of safety. We’re still grappling to settle this, situation by situation – including what to do about social media-driven popup parties and “teen takeovers” in cities.
The freedom to move around has never been absolute, but it’s never been appreciated enough in the U.S.
I had a different experience as a young editor in poverty-stricken Jamaica. I did not go to the island country’s beaches or resorts. I was invited by a nonprofit to join a small group of journalists to witness the widespread poverty first hand and write about it for First World audiences. At my hotel, barbed wired on the fence guarded the parking lot. Ignoring the warning, I ventured beyond that protection and was sorry I did. Local street vendors found me quickly and tried to sell me contraband jewelry, women and drugs, and a pickup truckload of gun-carrying men spied me with suspicion. I hurried in another direction and back to safety inside the fence. While touring the worst areas, a couple of men brandishing machetes approached on foot, but our guide was local and explained that we were OK. For a minute, I imagined a story about us being slaughtered rather than returning to write about the woman roaming the putrid town dump alongside wild pigs, scavenging with the animals for the same scraps of spoiled food.
What a contrast that was to my American experience, where I generally can travel, live and work as quickly as a plane, train or automobile can take me.
In my lifetime and career, I’ve experienced an increasingly diverse group of colleagues and friends enjoying the same freedom of movement that I have, with the primary universal barriers being time and money, which are different for everyone. I can choose whether to drive across town or to Florida, or whether to walk down the street or stroll through a park or join hundreds of strangers at a fireworks display, and I am grateful how freely I can do so. I think many just take it for granted, but I celebrate this freedom of movement, while acknowledging there is still progress to be made, as the U.S. celebrates its 250th birthday.
This article appears in July 2, 2026.
