The Tie That Binds

Hello from D.C. Everyone!
We are back in the hotel room for the night and we have had a very eventful day. After arriving in Washington, we decided to go see some of the sites. Naturally, we went to the National Mall and the Smithsonian Museum. The monuments were just as monumental as always, but the museum was what intrigued me the most, particularly the Civil Rights exhibit. There was a direct reenactment of the sit-ins at Greensboro and photographs of the famous march on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. All of these images caused me to think about the American peoples' history of civil disobedience and the reasons behind disobedience. At first, it was to win freedom from an oppressive country, then we were disobedient to one another when sides could not agree during the Civil War. Women were disobedient so that they could finally gain suffrage and African Americans were disobedient so that they could gain political equality. In more recent years, we have been disobedient in order to show disapproval of wars, political philosophies, and bad economic policies. But what has been the common theme behind all of these disobediences? It is the hope that through our demonstrations and protests, some good will come from it and that the future will be better than the present. Now of course all of these instances do not carry the same weight as the others, but the goal behind them is a better life. And I strongly believe that this idea, the idea of a better future, the idea of hope is something that Americans will carry with them for generations to come. That is why we, the Save Our Schools participants, are here this weekend. We want more for our children, our grandchildren, and all future Americans and we want everyone to know it.