What are your dreams for the next 250 years? We asked these Americans

As the nation turns 250 years old, USA TODAY decided to create a time capsule, not of items but of dreams Americans hold for the country’s future. Show Caption

Americans are restless. We sought independence 250 years ago as a nation in pursuit of unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We moved across the land in covered wagons searching for prosperity. We raced toward space, believing it was a new frontier for knowledge and peace. The country’s progress has also been shadowed by injustice: the enslavement of Black Americans, murder of indigenous peoples and the unequal application of laws. But throughout even the darkest periods, Americans have held steadfast to the idea they could make tomorrow brighter than yesterday. As the nation turns 250 years old, USA TODAY decided to create a time capsule, not of items but of dreams Americans hold for our country’s future. In our conversations with residents across the country, one word continued to come up: more. Hope for a more empathetic, more cooperative, more peaceful, more equal, more united society. Here is what these Americans told us about their hopes and dreams for the next 250 years of the United States:Daniel Palma and Manuel Ochoa from PhoenixDaniel Palma hopes for more empathy. His friend Manuel Ochoa hopes for unity.The two, both 25, strolled through the Granary Burying Ground on a warm spring day in Boston. The friends from Phoenix studied the weathered gravestones of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, reading the names of those whose vision for a new nation still shapes the country 250 years later. Asked what he hopes for the next 250 years, Palma, an electrical engineer, said he wishes Americans would become more understanding of one another. “I hope we can stop being so individualistic and learn to be a little more empathetic,” Palma said. Ochoa, a U.S. Army soldier, said he hopes for greater unity across the country. “In the next 250 years, I hope that the country is more united, and it’s not states against states – it’s all the United States of America,” Ochoa said. − Bailey Allen, USA TODAY NetworkDavid Jurkiewicz from Tulsa, Oklahoma David Jurkiewicz, a 73-year-old retired journalist from Tulsa, Oklahoma, said wants the U.S. to be more willing to cooperate with other countries.“I love my country, but there are a lot of other nice places in the world that are worthwhile and just as good places to live as the United States,” he said. “We can’t just keep saying, ‘We’re No. 1 and we’re the only country that matters.’ We have to live with everyone, and if we don’t share what we have, if we don’t meet people halfway, if we just want to put ourselves first, we’re going to end up last.” Jurkiewicz stopped to read a placard while visiting a historical graveyard in Boston with his family. He said he is concerned about what he sees as a growing focus on wealth and self-interest in American politics. “I’m hoping that we get rid of people in a democratic way, people like Trump, and the people who think like him – who are only concerned about making money,” Jurkiewicz said. −Bailey Allen, USA TODAY NetworkJeremy and Camary Baker of Bountiful, UtahJeremy Baker's hope for the country’s future is simple: “continued freedom.” A business owner from Bountiful, Utah, Baker wore a red, white, and blue 250th-themed shirt with the words “Home of The Brave” and a baseball cap emblazoned with “Gulf of America" as he and his family visited Boston's Freedom Trail − including the Old North Church where two lanterns hung in the belfry on April 18, 1775 to warn colonists that British troops were on the move.He said he believes the country has “never been better.” “I think we’re headed in the right direction, getting back to the fundamentals, and what America was all about,” Baker, 44, said. “I love everything about what the current administration is doing and the direction of the country, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.” Camary Baker, 44, a pilot, said she hopes the country remains a place where individuals can innovate and prosper. “We know who we are, we know what we want, and we have the power of the Constitution and the creator who endowed us with that power,” she said. “There’s nothing else we need.” −Bailey Allen, USA TODAY NetworkMarian Mihu from Cleveland, Ohio For Marian Mihu, armed conflict is top of mind for her as she thinks about the nation's future.On a sunny afternoon in Arlington National Cemetery, Mihu sought refuge in the shade while the rest of her family trekked up to the final resting place of former President John F. Kennedy. Mihu, 72, travels from her home in Cleveland to Washington, DC, often to visit her daughter, so this was not her first visit to the historic cemetery. But Mihu said she still feels somber thinking of the sacrifices the veterans buried there made for their country. “They lost their lives to keep us free, you know?” she said as she looked out at the vast rows of white gravestones. Mihu said she’s worried about the war in Iran even as a peace deal neared. When asked about her hopes for the country’s next 250 years, she said she wants just one thing: peace. “That’s my biggest thing, peace. For my grandkids and my family,” she said. − N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAYAileen Galvan and Olivia Suarez from Long Beach, CaliforniaThe atmosphere at Arlington National Cemetery is nearly silent save for the sputtering of sprinklers, the rumble of the tram and the footsteps of the service members guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That respectful environment made the cemetery one of Aileen Galvan’s favorite stops on her post-graduation trip to the nation’s capital. The approach of the 250th anniversary has brought up complicated feelings for Galvan, 18, and Olivia Suarez, both of whom just finished high school in Long Beach, California. Galvan said the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts in particular has made it feel difficult to celebrate this period in the country’s history. “Don’t get me wrong, I love where we live,” Galvan said. “But I don’t love everything about where we live.” Suarez, 19, said she too is worried the country is “going backwards instead of forward.” She hopes to see the nation become less divided politically over the next 250 years. “We’re very separated,” she said. “Hopefully we can unite more. We could have our own differences but not be so separated at the same time.” −N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAYFrank Cunningham of Columbia, MissouriFrank Cunningham feels both apprehension and optimism about the nation's future.Cunningham, 63, an engineer who works on state buildings in Missouri, believes the United States has changed mostly for the better in the last 250 years, but he wants to see the country “fix the things that are going wrong right now.” While his wife was busy with a nearby student history contest, Cunningham took an afternoon stroll around the historic sights of Arlington National Cemetery. He remembers the fanfare and excitement around the bicentennial in 1976. “There weren’t any cage fights or anything like that,” he joked, referencing the UFC Freedom 250 fight on the South Lawn of the White House. For the next 250 years, he said he hopes “that we can take care of each other. Health care and feeding each other and feeding the world. That we don’t have to be selfish with our money and have oligarchs and people that have trillions of dollars like Elon [Musk].” −N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAYDan and Caroline Wilcox of Charleston, South CarolinaDan Wilcox has a simple hope for the future.“I’d like to see 250 years of Eagles Super Bowl wins!” Wilcox, currently lives in Charleston, South Carolina but grew up in the Philadelphia suburb of Ridley Park. He and his family were in Philadelphia on a muggy, overcast weekday recently visiting Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.Wilcox and his wife, Caroline, wanted their 9-year-old daughter, Elise, to “see the real thing,” he said, as she learns about American history. All three of the Wilcoxes had their own wish for America’s next 250 years as Philadelphia welcomes millions of visitors for the semiquincentennial. Caroline Wilcox said she’s someone who loves the outdoors, hiking and exploring nature. Her wish: “I really want to see our national parks protected and preserved so our children, like her,” she said, motioning to her daughter, “can enjoy them.” Elise said she loves getting glimpses into the past, like the Amish people she’s seen in places outside the city making their way along country roads in horse-drawn buggies.−Phaedra Trethan, USA TODAYDavid Bowman from UtahWhen David Bowman, 36, stepped out of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, he was followed by his wife and three children. The Utah family is spending their summer road tripping through the Southeast and stopping at significant Civil Rights sites along the way, including the King Center in Atlanta. When asked why it was important to visit the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final resting place and the national park, Bowman said he hopes “that people cannot forget the struggle that everybody had to go through to get civil rights (and) workers’ rights in the country.” “When you kind of get complacent on that stuff and start listening to the ideas of really smooth-talking politicians that don’t have your best interest at heart, you start to lose your freedoms and start to lose the things you rely on to be able to make a good life for yourself,” Bowman said. He said he hopes his children’s generation “can undo what my generation is doing right now, and hopefully kind of improve things a bit” as the country enters the next 250 years. “It’s a pendulum, it swings back and forth, but hopefully it swings back the way that I think makes it easier for people to have families and make a good life for themselves and be able to get a good job, earn a good wage, live their lives the way they want to, to make a good life in America,” Bowman said. “Right now, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do that.” −Irene Wright, USA TODAY NetworkLynn Diaz from AtlantaLynn Diaz, 54, wants a focus on the nation's children.Diaz has lived in Atlanta for nearly two decades, but on June 8, she was visiting the King Center in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward for the very first time. Diaz was thinking about her work spent in education as she pondered the country’s 250th birthday. Diaz said the fate of the next 250 years for the United States is dependent on how adults prepare the next generation to take on the mantle. “There’s a big concern with the dismantling of the Department of Education, and lots of questions still around the stability and sustainability of public education,” Diaz said. “So, I think we’re still strong, we’re a strong nation, we continue to be, but there’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of preparing for our youth and their future.” −Irene Wright, USA TODAY NetworkWhitney Morrow of Olathe, KansasOlathe, Kansas, schoolteacher Whitney Morrow, 31, also had education on her mind after visiting the Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park in Topeka, Kansas.Morrow was part of a group of six women and girls from northeast Kansas and Texas, ranging from childhood to age 85, who visited the Brown site together June 12. "I would like to see education be a priority for the next 250 years, because everybody deserves an education," she said. − Tim Hrenchir, The Topeka Capital-Journal, USA TODAY NetworkDeborah and Paul Walker from Meredith, New HampshireDeborah Walker, 83, wants everyone to remember the Constitution."I want a return to many of the fundamentals that are in the Constitution, where every individual has an equal right and is treated as an individual," she said after touring the Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park in Topeka, Kansas. "That includes women, people with disabilities, people who are of different skin colors." A retired public health researcher and leader, Walker joined her husband, Paul Walker, 80, in visiting the park. People from throughout the nation come to the former all-Black school building to learn about this nation's history of school segregation and the landmark court case that banned it in 1954. "I want to make sure in 250 years we definitely have universal health care for everyone and we have really good schools, because they're really under attack right now," Deborah Walker said. "And I would like to be a member of a global community that believes we need to address climate change and we really need peace." Paul Walker said he hopes for "a more equal country" and "a more peaceful country," adding that he works in the field of international security, arms control and disarmament. And, he said, "I'd like for the federal government to work for the people, and not themselves." − Tim Hrenchir, The Topeka Capital-Journal, USA TODAY NetworkBryan Swintek and Matt Stonehill of Steamboat Springs, ColoradoBryan Swintek, 36, and his husband, Matt Stonehill, 34, of Steamboat Springs, Colorado saw parallels between the United States in the time of President Thomas Jefferson and 2026. “I feel like we’re at a similar inflection point,” Swintek, a Steamboat Springs city council member, told USA TODAY on a recent visit to Monticello, Jefferson's Virgina home. “It feels chaotic, there’s a lot of change, it’s a crazy time.” And yet Jefferson, they noted, drafted the Declaration of Independence when he was around their age, shaping both the nation's founding and American life in the years, decades and centuries that followed. Stonehill, a certified public accountant and financial planner, described a nation “slipping away” from its founding ideals ahead of its 250th anniversary, while Swintek said he felt both “hopeless and hopeful.” “It’s part of the fabric of America that it is messy, it is chaotic, it is scary," Swintek said, "but at the end of the day, we’re better for it."− BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAYChris Dotson of Knoxville, TennesseeChris Dotson and his family were among the throngs of visitors gathering on a chilly morning at San Francisco’s Vista Point, patiently awaiting a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge to emerge from a thick fog. As he waited, he had a clear vision of what he’d like to see in America over the next 250 years."I really hope we’re more unified than I feel like we are today," said Dotson, 53, slowly taking in the Bridge’s scenery with his wife Maria, 48, and their sons Alex, 15, and Theo, 12, while vacationing as part of a two-week trip visiting family, friends, and sites along the California coast."There’s a lot of division in this country," said Dotson of Knoxville, Tennessee. "It’s either one side or the other side, so I hope we can get past that, you know, in the next few years, at least. I hope we come together a little bit more, and in the next 250 years, I hope we’re still together."Dotson, a sales engineer who creates digital signage for major corporations, also hopes America maintains its status as a nation that’s open to all and as a benevolent global ally in the next 250 years. "We’re all on this planet together, right? And I think we’re better when we’re unified with other countries," Dotson said, as the fog began to fade from the bridge. "We’re still a country of opportunity, and for whom much is given, much is expected. We should help other people."— Terry Collins, USA TODAY