Written by Anne Calonico

This weekend was my first time in Washington D.C., the place at the heart of American history. I looked for history in the old brownstone buildings of Georgetown. I looked for history in fragile paper documents, illuminated underneath glass cases. I looked for history in the cloudy eyes of a taxidermied animals that no longer roam the Earth. I looked for history beneath the ornate, metallic arch which read in Chinese. I even looked for history in the big white house on Pennsylvania Avenue—but, I couldn’t find history anywhere.

Then, I heard something. I followed the electric sound of passion and anger and democracy. I saw a great mass of people in the streets. They carried signs, a few adorned pink hats, and some were too young to even walk. Chants came from bodies big and small, but they were anything but quiet. Vote them out… THIS is what democracy looks like… vote her in, they shouted.

The voices were strong and loud. They traded stories and listened, too. It became clear that the faces in the crowd and on the stage were all telling a similar narrative:

Too many have fallen at the hand of greed and corruption. The government works for its people. If it refuses to do so, we will vote them out. We demand legislation to end the mass slaughter that continues to occur in our country. This is not a matter of party, but a matter of life or death.

At this point I was shouting, too, joined by hundreds of thousands of my white, black and brown brothers and sisters across the world. All of sudden, I realized—I had found history, and it looked a lot like youth.