The late Coretta Scott King once said, “Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it with every generation.”
With every generation, movements for political change have been buttressed by the energy, talent, resolve, creativity and dedication of young people. Indeed, it was the dedicated organizing of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that helped dramatize the ills of Jim Crow segregation. Young people such as Ruby Bridges, the Tougaloo Nine, Diane Nash and children of the Birmingham March demanded that America live up to her promise. James Cheney, Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins and Denise McNair became martyrs in a movement to affirm the most basic rights of American citizenship.
Young people propelled the anti-war movement to point out the hypocrisy of fighting for democracy abroad while failing to secure and protect it here at home. It was that confluence of military service and civil rights activism that made the senseless murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson so egregious.
Jackson was a deacon, community leader and activist who fought in Vietnam only to return to Alabama and be denied access to the ballot. He was an American patriot shot in the stomach by a state trooper and left to die in a substandard hospital marked for “Coloreds Only.” Jackson’s death in Selma prompted John Lewis and 600 other brave foot soldiers to set out on a march from Selma to Montgomery, beaten by state troopers in what would become known as the Bloody Sunday March.
That resilient spirit led young people to launch divestment campaigns on college campuses across the U.S. as a show of solidarity with the anti-apartheid movement. Through vigils, protests and film screenings, students elevated public awareness of South Africa’s racial caste system while demanding that American institutions no longer finance the separation. And it was that same resiliency that drew students to the National Mall for the 1995 Million Man March. Young people returned to their campuses and communities armed with an increased self-awareness that was reflected through various elements of pop culture and community organizing.
And now, as America comes to grips with its latest mass shooting, a brewing demand for gun reform is being led by young people saying “enough” and “no more.” The murder of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. is viewed by many as a watershed moment in a decades-long pattern of mass shootings at schools such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook. While determining what qualifies as a “school shooting” is heavily debated, the disruption of peace for students, faculty and families is indisputable.
Over the last week, I have watched young people affected by this latest violence boldly criticize legislators and demand effective policy measures. Seeing them stand up evokes the same sense of pride I felt hearing students in Flint and Chicago decry a pattern of political indifference that puts their lives in danger. The pain in their voices is palpable and endearing. Together, young people are affirming the impossibility of not politicizing an epidemic borne out of policy choices financed by groups with political interests.
