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We Forgot What It Took to Gain Freedom

The assault on voting rights should remind us.

As an organizer, I do not see this moment as an abstract idea or confined to the pages of a history textbook. As an Afro-Latina mother, I know the actions of today shape the nation our children will inherit. We are at a moment in which true patriots and believers in our representative democracy must step up and take action.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down Louisiana’s Black-majority congressional district did not happen in isolation. This story is as old as our nation: those in power rig the rules to protect themselves from accountability. And when entire communities are politically silenced, the avarice fueling environmental injustice, mass unemployment, high infant mortality, and crushing costs goes unchecked.

The ruling has only upped the ante.

Within hours, Tennessee Republicans carved up a majority-Black district in Memphis in a deliberate effort to weaken Black political power. In Alabama and Louisiana, lawmakers continue advancing racial gerrymandering efforts designed to dilute fair representation. Across the country, voter suppression laws are making it harder for working people, seniors, students, and communities of color to fully participate in our democracy.

And when politicians like Donald Trump and the Republicans who bow to him see working people rejecting their failed agenda, they do what powerful interests have done throughout our history: rig the rules instead of answering to the people they’ve hurt.

But none of this is new.

These attacks never stop with one community. When any community is denied full representation, the consequences ripple far beyond that community. This is not simply another political fight; it is an act of war on democracy itself.

And in many ways, that struggle has defined the American story from the very beginning.

At the founding of our nation, “We the People” proclaimed that all men are created equal, and yet we did not mean all men. As our nation approaches its 250th year, America is still grappling with the gap between its promises and its reality.

Still, ordinary people have repeatedly forced this country to move closer to its ideals through solidarity, organizing, and collective action. Time and time again, Americans have expanded the promise of democracy by........

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