‘The next 250 years belong to all of us’: seven activists on rebuilding the US
The Guardian
Wed 1 Jul 2026 08.00 EDT
Advocates describe this moment as both a crisis and an opening to reimagine the promises of freedom and democracy
This Fourth of July marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence promised liberty and equality for all – even as it excluded most of the people living on the land it claimed to liberate.
For many Americans, the semiquincentennial is less a celebration than a reckoning. The country arrives at this milestone amid sustained attacks on voting rights, civil rights and democratic institutions – challenges that organizers say are taking the country back generations. It’s a moment that activists and advocates describe as both a crisis and an opening to reimagine the promises of freedom and democracy.
“We can still build the democracy we all deserve – not the one we inherited, but the one we have the power to create,” said Kristen Clarke, general counsel at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Many of the voices shaping this reckoning are not in the traditional halls of power. They are on picket lines and at protests, in classrooms and courtrooms, and in philanthropic circles and grassroots organizations. They are workers who were fired for unionizing, lawyers who have fought the rollback of basic liberties and Indigenous land stewards whose communities have been fighting for recognition since long before 1776.
What unites them is a refusal to accept the country as it is and a belief that the next 250 years can look radically different from the last. Here is their assessment of where the country is now and what they say it will take to reshape it.
‘Not just preserve democracy, but evolve it’
Celina Stewart
League of Women Voters chief executive officer
Trust has been eroded. People were promised things and have since faced a reality that many did not anticipate – including a level of inhumanity toward immigrant communities that defies what was sold to them.
Our hope is not just to preserve democracy, but to evolve it – to make it more representative, more inclusive and, above all, more resilient. That requires modernizing our systems, protecting against mis- and disinformation and fostering a culture where participation is a shared responsibility. Not something other people do. Something we all do together. Democracy is not something we inherit fully formed. It is something every generation has had to build. This is our moment to build it.
Read the full article here.