North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein marked the nation’s 250th anniversary on Monday by urging Americans to continue striving toward the country’s founding ideals and highlighting the legacy of Jewish suffragist Gertrude Weil.

In a Fourth of July message, Stein wrote that although the Declaration of Independence proclaimed equality and liberty, “our young nation did not fully live up to those ideals,” and generations of Americans “never stopped pursuing a more perfect union.”

Stein recognized Weil, the daughter of German Jewish immigrants who settled in Goldsboro, N.C., as a leader of North Carolina’s women’s suffrage movement. After founding the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League, Weil “helped secure the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote.” Stein wrote.

Calling freedom “both our inheritance and our responsibility,” Stein urged Americans to “pick up the baton of freedom and keep running.”

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