A Call to Action From Today’s Youth: Sometimes History Really Does Repeat Itself by Lauren Carrier Horton

Fifty-eight years ago this month, four brave African-American students sat down at a Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., and politely asked to be served. They were refused.

In the days and weeks that followed the Woolworth sit-in’s peaceful demand for justice and equality, more youth-led protests around our nation were sparked. Their actions and demands, unified and powerful, created a movement and preempted our country’s civil rights legislation.

Right now, we are seeing a similar demand for justice by our nation’s youth. Like the Greensboro Four, today’s youth are also courageous, peaceful in protest, powerful in voice.

We as a nation have a chance to respond, just like we did more than 50 years ago. We can listen and turn away, refusing to acknowledge their cries like many did then. Or we can listen and respond with a unified demand for change.

Let those of us with a voice not be silent. As adults, as parents, let us choose to be part of this movement of hope and justice, showing our nation’s youth once again that there is power to collective voices rallying together, in spite of fear, to create positive change for our nation now, and for generations to come.

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