The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History

by Sharon McMahon

Both of these things are true at the same time. America has been just, and it has perpetuated injustice. We have been peaceful, and we have perpetrated acts of violence. We have been—and are—good. And we have done terrible things to people who didn’t deserve them. It has been the land of the free while simultaneously sanctioning oppression. Such is often the experience of any government run by fallible human beings.

So true. Also swap "America" for "organized religion."

If anyone tries to tell you the Civil War was a war for “state’s rights,” calmly look them in the eye, and ask, politely and inquisitively, what exactly the states wanted the “right” to do? You can follow up with, “Make their own rules about what?” The answer is, of course, that they wanted to make their own rules about whether they had the right to enslave people. All the “way of life” and “self-determination” and “economic conditions” roads lead right back to slavery.

“She took Christianity to mean for someone to be Christ-like if they were a Christian. And I joke with my students that there are people who go to the church, to the mosque, to the temple, and there are those that follow their religion. And those are not necessarily the same people.”

“The world cares very little about what you or I know, but it cares a great deal about what you or I do.”[2]

Virginia was so beloved that her methods and philosophy of schooling spread far and wide. She traveled and trained other teachers on how to approach education as something that must address the whole child, their family, and the community at large. She viewed schools not merely as a place to gain literacy but as tools to fight systemic poverty.

she wrestled with her faith, knowing that she believed in something, but unable to decide what it was exactly. There was too much presumption in theology, Katie thought. She was both jealous and suspicious of people who trusted what they were taught about God.

Even when you know someone is dying, even when you can see they are suffering and you wish for them not another moment of painful breath, nothing can really prepare you for the moment. Not the moment they depart this life, but the moment you realize you must continue to exist, even though they are gone. Why do the birds go on singing, as though nothing has changed? Why do the children continue playing as though everything has not just been ripped asunder? “I don’t know why this heart of mine should go on beating when Katharine’s heart is ashes,” Katie wrote in her diary. “But it does.”[17]

“This war could not have been fought, either by the nations engaged or by America, if it had not been for the services of women…. Are we alone to ask and take the utmost that women can give—service and sacrifice of every kind—and still say that we do not see what title that gives them to stand by our sides in the guidance of the affairs of their nation and ours? We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them only to a partnership of sacrifice and suffering and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and of right?”[19]

Progress is usually born out of struggle. But struggle doesn’t always mean progress, does it? What do we need to add to struggle to create progress? The answer is hope. Hope, which attorney and author Bryan Stevenson told me is not a feeling but an orientation of the spirit. Hope is a choice that we make each morning, and we do not have the luxury of hopelessness if we want to see progress.

Progress doesn’t arrive unbidden, carried on the back of a silvery bird, deposited on our doorsteps during the night. Progress is birthed. It is conceived of and labored for. It is the work of multitudes.

None of us can do it all. But all of us can do something. And it might as well be the next needed thing.

Here again is the AND, the nuance that we must embrace with history. Our minds want to categorize people into one of two camps: Good or evil. Angel or demon. Most often, that viewpoint denies people the fullness of their humanity and can overlook positive contributions or ignore negative impacts.

the reason he wanted to be a Democrat was that he thought that the Republicans wanted to protect property—what we have—but the Democrats wanted to protect people—who we are.[12]

When George W. Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, he asked Norm to stay in his cabinet, this time as Secretary of Transportation. It’s only the fourth time in history that a cabinet member has served presidents of opposite political parties. “I tried to depoliticize my cabinet. I didn’t want people in there serving the Republican Party, I wanted people in there serving their country. There is no better servant for America than Norm Mineta,” Bush recalled.[14]

“The word compromise today is a bad word. People think of it as a weakness, rather than a strength to get something done.”[25]

What will history remember with kindness? The leader with the most cunning tweets? The one with the most self-aggrandizing speeches and the biggest audiences? No, it’s not the cynics who emerge the heroes, but the people who spent their lives in service to others. It’s those that fight for justice for someone whose reflection they don’t see in the mirror.

“How can our enemies have a change of heart if we don’t work with them? How can they be convinced that they’re on the wrong path if we cut them out of our lives? How can we possibly hope to influence someone with whom we have no relationship?”

“To me, social justice is not a matter of money, but of will, not a problem for the economist as much a task for the patriot.”[25]