An open letter: From a daughter of protest to a defender of democracy

I sit here, thinking about our country — this place I’ve always believed in — and wonder how we got here. I grew up in the 1960s and ’70s, when protest was an act of love. We sang in the streets, hearts full of hope and defiance. “All we are saying is give peace a chance,” “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,” “The times they are a changin”… just to name a few.

Those songs shaped me. They were promises whispered into the future. I believed them. I believed we — the generation who marched, chanted, and stood up — would carry this country forward. I never thought, in my late 60s, I would be protesting again. Not because I have nothing better to do, but because I must. I never imagined a time when my own family would turn their backs on me because of what I believe. In school I learned about the Civil War — how it tore brothers apart — and I would wonder how such a thing could happen.

Now, I no longer wonder.

My father fought in World War II. He was a quiet man, soft-spoken and proud. At 21, he volunteered to join the fight against fascism. He flew as a waist gunner on a B-17 bomber. On his 35th mission, his plane was shot down. Of the 10 men aboard, only 4 survived. The cockpit was blown apart. The tail was gone. Trapped by fallen equipment, my dad kicked and shoved until he could crawl backward through the open end of the plane, pulling his parachute as he slid out into the sky. He landed in enemy territory. A soldier stood before him, gun pointed, helmet squared. In a thick German accent, he said, “For you, the war is over.” It wasn’t.

My father spent 13 months as a prisoner of war — starved, and humiliated. When liberation finally came, he weighed under 100 pounds. But he walked away. He survived. When I once asked him, “How did you make it through?” he answered simply: “The worse the treatment got, the closer to liberation I felt I was becoming.” That belief kept him alive. And it keeps me going now. When I look at our country and feel despair, when the division and hatred feel too much to bear, I hold on to his words. I remind myself: The worse this becomes, the closer we are to recapturing our democracy.

To anyone who feels exhausted, angry, abandoned, or afraid — you are not alone. We come from generations of people who fought for freedom, for truth, for one another. We must keep fighting. We must keep singing. We must believe that liberation is not only possible—it is coming.

— Gayle Kersten, a Daughter of Protest and a Proud American