During that time, we were faced with a crucial question: Who are we? How can we have faith in the bedrock principles of American democracy when they are upended by a government who, in the service of power, engaged in deliberate lies and deceit? A government that pitted citizens against one another and convinced an overwhelming majority of the American people that they were betrayed?
Fifty years later, we are about to mark the republic’s 250th anniversary and, once again, must reckon with a similar question. Will the promise of liberty and equal justice for all prevail? To paraphrase William Butler Yeats, will the foundations of our democracy hold, or will things fall apart?
Civil Rights pioneer, Ella Baker, believed the answer to this question can only come, in a meaningful way, through the active engagement of ordinary citizens, such as Frank Wills, making common cause with whomever, whenever, and wherever that may be, especially at this moment when that is needed more than ever before.