I don’t know that I spend a lot of time talking with young readers about a writing community specifically, but I do talk to them about community overall. Community is a vital part of not just being a writer, but of being an activist, of being someone who uses your voice in the world in whatever way. When we look at the historical Civil Rights Movement or the contemporary Civil Rights Movement it’s never just one person.
Even if we celebrate the heroes in our historical narrative and we hold up people like the Reverend Dr. King or Rosa Parks and say these are the heroes, these are the people that changed the world, that’s only part of the story. The reality is that there were hundreds and thousands of often very young people, teenagers, college students, even middle school students and younger, elementary kids, who marched and protested and the only way that that made a difference is because they did it together as a community.
They rose up as one voice and every person who showed up to a protest, every person who was willing to get arrested, every person who put their life and freedom on the line for what they believed in was part of something much bigger. And so whether it’s about writing, whether it’s about activism, we often feel so small, we feel like we’re just one little person in this huge landscape of so much that’s challenging and so much that needs to change.
But the way that we get through it is by working together, by doing our little part, writing our little words, going to our little protests. Whatever it is that we can do that we’re a part of something much bigger. And community is the foundation for all of that.
