I’ve been going to protests for 50 years. I’ve protested racism, sexism, homophobia, book burning, environmental devastation, income inequality, US treatment of immigrants and refugees, and three wars. I’ve marched with Black Lives Matter since 2014. Not since the late 1960s have I felt as much hope for real, lasting change as I do now.

The more brutally the police respond to protests against police brutality toward black people, the more they show the world the protesters are right. Racism is everywhere. The US was built on slavery and genocide. White people continue to reap the benefits of all that unpaid labor and stolen land. People of color continue to suffer without any compensation for their terrible losses.

Black people led the way in the 1960s as they are leading now. The civil rights movement showed America how you make real change. You hit the streets with as many people as you can, raise your voices together, resist violence, and don’t stop until you get what you need. Not just civil rights laws but the anti-Vietnam War, women’s liberation, gay rights, and environmental movements were the result.

For a few years, it seemed that America was waking up. Laws were passed. Attitudes shifted. Then Reagan came along in 1980, and progress stopped. AIDS activists, their horror and rage burning brightly in a dark time, eventually forced America to take another few steps forward on gender issues. Regarding poverty, war, racism, and the environment, Reagan pushed us backward. Since then: no progress to speak of.

For the past 40 years, almost half of the US population has behaved as though our federal government is not our concern. This is supposed to be a democracy; the people are supposed to be driving this car. Instead, we’ve been asleep at the wheel. If we don’t take control, rich white men do all the steering. The pandemic demonstrates that they don’t know where the hell they’re going, except toward human extinction. The people in the streets today are struggling to steer us in a different direction. The odds are long as always. But maybe this time, America will wake up — and STAY woke.