Bridge of Wills

Democracy isn’t just a simple passive word in our diction thrown around without any meaning: it holds special significance to millions across the world who see its guiding light to shape their own present and future. Democracy is blind to race, color, and creed: a form of governance forged to create equality no matter where you are or where you are from. The freedom to go to the supermarket, movie theater, or a business without being judged by your skin color, culture, or gender that’s what democracy is. The freedom to walk with your kids and not be judged, the freedom not to be humiliated, and while America still has a long way to go to turn the wheels of inclusion so that everyone may bask in the warmth of democracy, our country can pride itself in the strides it has taken and is taking to ensure equality for all becomes a reality.  

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow  

In the pantheon of American greats, one cannot forget the actions taken by Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln saw a future that had not arrived: he saw beyond the merciless violence and passions that plagued his compatriots and envisioned a future without the abhorrence of slavery. Lincoln fought the good fight and saw the country through its darkest time, but Lincoln never wavered, and he stayed true to the future. He saw that a house divided itself could not stand. The country emerged tattered and broken, and Lincoln paid the ultimate price. Still, Lincoln’s fight isn’t reserved to a mere echo that has no relevance to today: we need men and women of principle more than ever to carry on fighting the good fight and seeing the country the challenges that face every new generation. 

The wheels of history kept turning, and America was called again into the foray of action, but once again, like we always do, we rose to the challenge with faith in hand. The tides of 19th-century industrialization brought about oppression for workers at the hands of robber barons: immigrants were treated as a disposable source of income, “scabs” as they were called, but just like the country had listened and rallied to Lincoln’s appellations to a higher cause, the masses rose again to fight against this cruel system. Forces tried to suppress change; forces like corrupt city bosses like Boss Tweed extorted and exploited the working population to keep them tied to their whims and paid off politicians to keep change stagnant, but change couldn’t be held. When the train of democracy begins to accelerate, no one can stop its course. Action was taken; in 1833, the Federal Government passed the Factory Act, which limited the hours that children could work, requiring employers to have age certificates of child workers and prohibiting children under nine from working. In 1938, you had the Fair Labor Standards Act, which prohibited children under 16 from working in manufacturing or mining and banned children under 18 from having jobs; it established a national minimum wage and limited the hours workers in interstate commerce could work. The tide of democracy accelerates slowly, but democracy never disappoints and always affirms its steadfastness in delivering change, and the defining struggle in America would arrive in the form of an old ghost that continued to haunt America: slavery. 

Though slavery had disappeared, the phantom hung over America without resolution in the form of Jim Crow. Millions in the South were experiencing a form of” pseudo slavery,” and basic rights and privileges were denied to people just for the folly notion that the color of their skin could determine where they could eat or go. Democracy would face its biggest challenge yet, but it didn’t waver, and faith never escaped, and millions would throw themselves onto the street. This civil rights movement, headed by the likes of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, did not yield until change swept across the land, and it did.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed in response, was signed by President Lyndon B Johnson on July 2. It was a groundbreaking law that, with immediate effect, banned discrimination in public places and made black students and white students go to the same school with the same opportunities and rights; this historical law made employment discrimination illegal. The dream of millions was finally realized, and the dream of a dead warrior, President Kennedy, was finally realized and passed in his honor. 

When we look at our struggle towards turning the pendulum towards the basic right of inclusion, how can we look ourselves in the eye and still claim to be a country that has always prided itself on being democratic? The answer is that although democracy has its fair heap of flaws, it never disappoints; we need people of principle who will not fear the challenges that they may encounter. 

Change into Tomorrow  

We must update the constitution while acknowledging the foundations that have made it great to meet modern standards and ensure the ongoing main of our government system, as without it, it could falter. Just as neglecting maintenance to break down, any system without proper maintenance causes cars or refrigerators to break down, any system without proper upkeep will inevitably collapse. This is the struggle of our generation to reconcile the new perspective and the old and to save our system amidst corruption and mismanagement happening at the highest levels from the Supreme Court downwards. We must all come together and unite young and old, black and white, arm to arm, to believe that we can make greater change in our society. 

If we aim to become a nation that continues to thrive and prosper for another 250 years and into the next millennia, we must prioritize the change that needs to occur. We should not neglect the welfare of our own people; we should not neglect America. Our goal is to balance global and domestic perspectives, to balance the old and new. That is our challenge, and I call on the country to introspect and find within itself the call for political effectiveness.