This is not a photo of kids waiting for a bus

Oh, I know what it looks like. It looks like a photo of a bunch of teenagers waiting on line for a bus.  But in fact, it’s a photo of hope. It’s a photo of the future. It’s a photo that reassures me that our democracy will not die, but will live on in the next generation.

Because this is a photo of kids heading down to Washington, D.C. to spend a week learning about activism at the ACLU Summer Advocacy Institute, a program designed to educated and inspire the next generation of social justice advocates. After a week in which the events in Charlottesville and this administration’s response to it left people on “many sides” of the political spectrum feeling nothing but despair, this snapshot serves as a counterbalance to the horrifying images of tiki-torch-wielding Nazis shouting anti-Semitic and racist slogans. After a weekend where 20 and 30 somethings marched for a whiter future, with a “way more racist” president who would not, as  White Supremacist Christopher Cartwell said in the ubiquitous Vice interview “Give his daughter to a Jew,” it’s heartening to see even younger people willing to stand up for their more liberal principles and spend a week learning how to turn those principles into action and to effect positive change.Continue Reading