John,

One hundred and twenty-five years ago, Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. The grandchild of enslaved people, he came into a world in which Jim Crow laws were spreading rapidly across the United States, forcing racial segregation in schools, libraries, buses, and restaurants, and robbing Black men of the right to vote.

And yet, despite the vicious racism he witnessed every day, Hughes imagined a better future for this country. In “Let America Be America Again,” he wrote:

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above… 

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

In this ugly, terrible moment in our country, we should take a page from Hughes — not only dreaming of what America can be in the future, but vowing to help make that dream a reality.

This administration has sunk to unthinkable depths of cruelty and corruption. They’ve tried to break our democracy from the inside, all to amass power and wealth for themselves. But I believe they will ultimately fail. And I plan to tell my kids, and their kids someday, about what we did in this moment, when we had to dream big, roll up our sleeves, and get to work. 

I want to tell them that we didn’t back down for a second in our fight for equality, fairness, and justice.

The NDRC is at the forefront of an existential fight for a representative democracy. It's a fight we must win. That requires enough of us showing up and putting in the effort — and yes, make a grassroots donation as you are able to fund this mission-critical work. 

Please stand with us and give what you can to help us protect our democracy and keep it strong for future generations.

And then, in the immortal words of Langston Hughes: America will be.

Thank you,
Marina