Good Trouble
When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act.
Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.
— Rep. John Lewis
When I was a child, getting “into trouble” was something I always tried to avoid. I didn’t want to get into trouble with my parents or my teachers. When I was in 4th grade, the teacher saw me when I stuck my tongue out at her. I was mortified because someone from school called my mom; I was in “big trouble” that day. On another occasion, when I was in high school, I tossed a pencil to a friend who needed one and got sent to the office for that infraction. Although initially the punishment was two weeks detention, I only served one week. That was a relief.
That’s not the trouble that John Lewis speaks about. What is “good trouble”? Rosa Parks got into “good trouble” when she refused to give up to a white man her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. Yes, she broke a law and yes, she was arrested, and she did it in a non-violent way. In doing so, she inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days; and eventually, bus segregation was held to be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Something wasn’t right. Rosa Parks did something about it; and today, she is regarded as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement.”