When Alan Paton wrote his novel (1948) about the effects of racial, economic and social injustice on individual citizens in South Africa, it became an international classic. The book portrayed the system of apartheid, and the suffering it caused in the black community among the elder generation and their children. Black people also felt an abiding mourning for the beautiful country they so dearly loved.

Here in America, at the same time this story was published, alarm bells were ringing from coast to coast about prejudice and discrimination in our own communities. Bigotry had become so visible in all walks of life, that the popular idol Frank Sinatra made a short “RKO Radio Picture” in 1945 that specifically warned against harboring prejudices about people of different religions and different races.

DC Comics produced a brown paper bag school book cover in 1949, with an over-sized Superman reminding children of the fundamental American value to respect diversity. Un-American talk, said this hero, meant talking against anyone because of national origin or religion or the color of their skin. Being All-American meant speaking up for those who were being oppressed.

Eisenhower, in 1953, spoke about the social and economic injustices that were resulting from the military’s grip on the national budget.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

I grew up in those times. I learned in school that America was a phenomenal country, unlike any other. We were a nation of immigrants. We welcomed people from around the globe – hungered, even, to show the rest of the world what an amazingly beautiful country we lived in, what true democracy looked like. We believed in freedom from all forms of tyranny and equality for every single person, no exceptions. Our democracy was admired the world over.

I was proud to be an American. Even though I was a child, the more I learned about our democracy, about liberty and justice for all, the more I felt that America was my beloved country.

Of course, the stories I heard in school were fashioned by white men in power – not by Native Americans, not by people of all colors, not by women, not by the poor and disenfranchised. Those white, male story tellers have been keeping a death grip on our collective narrative since the country was founded.

These days, they are acting to control women’s bodies and everyone’s gender. They are acting to severely curtail opportunities for immigrants and asylum seekers. They are acting to omit from school textbooks any mention of white men behaving badly- as in the holocaust, genocide, slavery, sexual assault, prison and policing practices, climate disaster and corporate war-making. In the name of deregulation, they tear apart government agencies established to help citizens maintain their rights and to preserve our environment. And they definitely enact legislation that gives white men in power more money and more power.

Since Trump was elected, our daily news is full of one outrageous assault against democracy after another. Cry, The Beloved Country.

The only ones left working on this beloved democracy are the progressives. That’s right! Conservatives are now typically white, moneyed people working hard to hold on to their long-held position as the dominant society. Democrats, once the champions of equality, have lined their pockets with so much corporate cash they’ve forgotten how to make policy based on our values as a society. People who talk from a perspective of our democratic ideals, such as equality and the pursuit of happiness, are now labeled as far left progressives!

Isn’t it interesting? The people who are speaking up for our values as a society, our American ideals, are people who have been left out of the conversation. People who have been in the margins. People emerging from the ninety-nine percent of the population that has only one percent of the wealth in the country, People who have been under the thumb of the one percent that holds ninety-nine percent of the wealth. Today’s champions of democracy are ordinary people, struggling to be heard.

It’s the progressives, then, who are determined to address climate change and job creation as twin prongs of an environmental and social justice plan. The progressives are working to make election day a national holiday in order to help everyone exercise their right to vote. They are the ones who are working in public school systems to teach tolerance and to give kids of all abilities and backgrounds equal opportunities to succeed. Progressives are working to reform the health care system, the criminal justice system and the immigration system.

This new generation of politicians, elected in the last mid-terms, is fighting for democracy, fighting to keep the ideals of democracy alive. They have already fought successfully for a seat at the table – making the image of our lawmakers, for the first time, inclusive of Muslims, women, Native Americans, blacks, people from the LGBTQ community,Hispanics and immigrants.

They give me hope for our beloved country.